Extinct monsters : A popular account of some of the larger forms of ancient animal life

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EXEINCT MONSPERS.

1000 copies printed Seplember, 1892.
500m 5; ,, Lebruary, 1893.
T5OO) |, » Mew Edition, corrected and entarged, April, 1893.

*yoay Sz ynoqe YISueT ‘|X ALvIg
“SASUOUd SAOLVUAOIUL SUNVSONIG GANUYOH OILNVOIO V

EX PINGTopiONsT ERS.

A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE LARGER
FORMS OF ANCIENT ANIMAL LIFE.

BY
REY, He WN. HUTCHINSON, BA, F.GS,,
4

AUTHOR OF ‘*THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE EARTH,”
AND ‘‘ THE STORY OF THE HILLS.”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. SMIT AND OTHERS.

FOURTH AND CHEAPER EDITION.

EONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, Lp:

1896.

Ali rights reserved.

i f- “ae aa jl ‘se

“‘The possibilities of existence run so deeply into the extravagant that
there is scarcely any conception too extraordinary for Nature to realise.”—
AGASSIZ,

PREFACE BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD, F.R.S.

KEEPER OF GEOLOGY, NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.

I HAVE been requested by my friend Mr. Hutchinson, to
express my opinion upon the series of drawings which
have been prepared by that excellent artist of animals,
Mr. Smit, for this little book entitled “ Extinct Monsters.”

Many of the stories told in early days, of Giants and
Dragons, may have originated in the discovery of the limb-
bones of the Mammoth, the Rhinoceros, or other large
animals, in caves, associated with heaps of broken frag-
ments, in which latter the ignorant peasant saw in fancy
the remains of the victims devoured at the monster’s
repasts.

In Louis Figuier’s World before the Deluge we are
favoured with several highly sensational views of extinct
monsters; whilst the pen of Dr. Kinns has furnished
valuable information as to the “slimy” nature of their
blood!

The late Mr. G. Waterhouse Hawkins (formerly a litho-
graphic artist) was for years occupied in unauthorised
restorations of various Secondary reptiles and Tertiary
mammals, and about 1853 he received encouragement

vi PREFACE BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD.

from Professor Owen to undertake the restorations of
extinct animals which still adorn the lower grounds of the
Crystal Palace at Sydenham.

But the discoveries of later years have shown that the
Dicynodon and Labyrinthodon, instead of being toad-like
in form, were lacertilian or salamander-like reptiles, with
elongated bodies and moderately long tails; that the
Iguanodon did not usually stand upon “all-fours,” but more
frequently sat up like some huge kangaroo with short
fore limbs ; that the horn on its snout was really on its
wrist ; that the Megalosaurus, with a more slender form
of skeleton, had a somewhat similar erect attitude, and the
habit, perhaps, of springing upon its prey, holding it with
its powerful clawed hands, and tearing it with its formidable
carnivorous teeth.

Although the Bernissart Iguanodon has been to us a
complete revelation of what a Dinosaur really looked like,
it is to America, and chiefly to the discoveries of Marsh,
that we owe the knowledge of a whole series of new
reptiles and mammals, many of which will be found
illustrated within these pages.

Of long and short-tailed Pterodactyles we now know
almost complete skeletons and details of their patagia
or flying membranes. The discovery of the long-tailed
feathered bird with teeth—the Archzopteryx, from the
Oolite of Solenhofen, is another marvellous addition to
our knowledge ; whilst Marsh’s great Hesperornis, a wing-
less diving bird with teeth, and his flying toothed bird, the
Ichthyornis dispar, are to us equally surprising.

Certainly, both in singular forms of fossil reptilia and in
early mammals, North America carries off the palm.

Of these the most remarkable are Marsh’s Stegosaurus,

PREFACE BY DR. HENRY WOODWARD. vii

a huge torpid reptile, with very small head and teeth, about
twenty feet in length, and having a series of flattened
dorsal spines, nearly a yard in height, fixed upon the
median line of its back; and his Triceratops, another
reptile bigger than Stegosaurus, having a huge neck-shield
joined to its skull, and horns on its head and snout. Nor
do the Eocene mammals fall short of the marvellous,
for in Dinoceras we find a beast with six horns, and sword-
bayonet tusks, joined to a skeleton like an elephant.

Latest amongst the marvels in modern palzontological
discovery has been that made by Professor Fraas of the
outline of the skin and fins in Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris,
which shows it to have been a veritable shark-like reptile,
with a high dorsal fin and broad fish-tail, so that “ fish-
lizard” is more than ever an appropriate term for these
old Liassic marine reptiles.

As every paleontologist is well aware, restorations are
ever liable to emendation, and that the present and latest
book of extinct monsters will certainly prove no exception
to the rule is beyond a doubt, but the author deserves our
praise for the very boldness of his attempt, and the honesty
with which he has tried to follow nature and avoid
exaggeration. Every one will admire the simple and un-
affected style in which the author has endeavoured to tell
his story, avoiding, as far as possible, all scientific terms,
so as to bring it within the intelligence of the unlearned.
He has, moreover, taken infinite pains to study up his
subject with care, and to consult all the literature
bearing upon it. He has thus been enabled to convey
accurate information in a simple and pleasing form, and
to guide the artist in his difficult task with much wisdom
and intelligence. That the excellence of the sketches is

b

vii PREFACE BY Dk. HENRY WOODWARD.

due to the artist, Mr. Smit, is a matter of course, and so
is the blame, where criticism is legitimate ; and no one is
more sensible of the difficulties of the task than Mr. Smit
himself.

Speaking for myself, I am very well pleased with the
series of sketches ; and I may say so with the greater ease
and freedom from responsibility, as I have had very little
to. do with them, save in one or two trifling matters of
criticism. I may venture, however, to commend them to
my friends among the public at large as the happiest set
of restorations that has yet appeared.

Hane

OF DINORNIS MAXIMUS,

RICHARD OWEN AND A SKELETON

THE LATE SIR
(From a photograph.)

PLATE XXIV.

AU THORS 3PRE acre.

NATURAL history is deservedly a popular subject. The
manifestations of life in all its varied forms is a theme
that has never failed to attract all who are not destitute
of intelligence. From the days of the primitive cave-
dwellers of Europe, who lived with mammoths and other
animals now lost to the world; of the ancient Egyptians,
who drew and painted on the walls of their magnificent
tombs the creatures inhabiting the delta of the Nile; of
the Greeks, looking out on the world with their bright
and child-like curiosity, down to our own times, this old,
yet ever new, theme has never failed. Never before was
there such a profusion of books describing the various
forms of life inhabiting the different countries of the globe,
or the rivers, lakes, and seas that diversify its scenery.
Popular writers have done good service in making the
way plain for those who wish to acquaint themselves with
the structures, habits, and histories of living animals ;
while for students a still greater supply of excellent
manuals and text-books has been, and still continues to
be, forthcoming.

But in our admiration for the present we forget the
great past. How seldom do we think of that innumerable

x AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

host of creatures that once trod this earth! How little in
comparison has been done for “Hem / Our natural-history
books deal only with those that are alive now. Few
popular writers have attempted to depict, as on a canvas,
the great earth-drama that has, from age to age, been
enacted on the terrestrial stage, of which we behold the
latest, but probably not the closing scenes.

When our poet wrote “All the world’s a stage,” he
thought only of “men and women,” whom he called
“merely players,” but the geologist sees a wider applica-
tion of these words, as he reviews the drama of past life
on the globe, and finds that animals, too, have had “their
exits and their entrances;” may more, “the strange
eventful history”’ of a human life, sketched by the master-
hand, might well be chosen to illustrate the birth and
growth of the tree of life, the development of which we
shall briefly trace from time to time, as we proceed on our
survey of the larger and more wonderful animals of life
that flourished in bygone times.

is

We might even make out a “seven ages” of the world,
in each of which some peculiar form of life stood out
prominently, but such a scheme would be artificial.

There is a wealth of material for reconstructing the past
that is simply bewildering ; and yet little has been done
to bring before the public the strange creatures that have
perished.’

To the writer it is a matter of astonishment that the

1 Figuier’s World before the Deluge is hardly a trustworthy book, and is often
not up to date. ‘The restorations also are misleading. Professor Dawson’s
Story of the Earth and Man is better; but the illustrations are poor.
Nicholson’s Life-History of the Earth isa student’s book. Messrs. Cassells’ Our
Earth and its Story deals with the whole of geology, and so is too diffusive ;
its ideal landscapes and restorations leave much to be desired.)

AUTHOR’S PREFACE. xl

discoveries of Marsh, Cope, Leidy, and others in America,
not to mention some important European discoveries,
should have attracted so little notice in this country. In
the far and wild West a host of strange reptiles and quad-
rupeds have been unearthed from their rocky sepulchres,
often of incredibly huge proportions, and, in many cases,
more weird and strange than the imagination could con-
ceive; and yet the public have never heard of these
discoveries, by the side of which the now well-known
“lost creations” of Cuvier, Buckland, or Conybeare sink
into the shade. For once, we beg leave to suggest, the
hungry pressman, seeking “copy,” has failed to see a
good thing. Descriptions of some of “ Marsh’s monsters”
and how they were found, might, one would think, have
proved attractive to a public ever on the look out for
something new.

Professor Huxley, comparing our present knowledge of
the mammals of the Tertiary era with that of 1859, states
that the discoveries of Gaudry, Marsh, and Filhol, are “as
if zoologists were to become acquainted with a country
hitherto unknown, as rich in novel forms of life as Brazil
or South America once were to Europeans.”

The object of this book is to describe some of the larger
and more monstrous forms of the past—the lost creations
of the old world ; to clothe their dry bones with flesh, and
suggest for them backgrounds such as are indicated by
the discoveries of geology: in other words, to endeavour,
by means of pen and pencil, to bring them back to life.
The ordinary public cannot learn much by merely gazing
at skeletons set up in museums. One longs to cover their
nakedness with flesh and skin, and to see them as they
were when they walked this earth.

xil AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

Our present imperfect knowledge renders it difficult in
some cases to construct successful restorations ; but, never-
theless, the attempt is worth making: and if some who
think geology a very dry subject, can be converted to a
different opinion on reading these pages, we shall be
well rewarded for our trouble.

We venture to hope that those who will take the trouble
to peruse this book, or even to look at its pictures, on which
much labour and thought have been expended, will find
pleasure in visiting the splendid geological collection at
Cromwell Road. We have often watched visitors walk-
ing somewhat aimlessly among those relics of a former
world, and wished that we could be of some service. But,
if this little book should help them the better to understand
what they see there, our wish will be accomplished.

Another object which the writer has kept in view is to
connect the past with the present. It cannot be too
strongly urged that the best commentary on the dead past
is the living present. It is unfortunate that there is still
too great a tendency to separate, as by a great gulf, the
dead from the living, the past from the present, forms of
life. The result of this is seen in our museums. Fossils
have too often been left to the attention of geologists not
always well acquainted with the structures of living animals.
The more frequent introduction of fossil specimens side by
side with modern forms of life would not only be a gain to
the progress and spread of geological science, but would
be a great help to students of anatomy and natural history.
The tree of life is but a mutilated thing, and half its interest
is gone, when the dead branches are lopped off.

It is, perhaps, justifiable to give to the term “ monster”
a somewhat extended meaning. The writer has therefore

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. Xill

included in his menagerie of extinct animals one or two
creatures which, though not of any great size, are neverthe-
less remarkable in various ways—such, for instance, as the
winged reptiles, and anomalous birds with teeth, of later
times, and others. Compared with living forms, these
creatures appear to us as “monstrosities,” and may well
find a place in our collection.

The author wishes, in a few words, to thank those
friends who have rendered him assistance in his task.

Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., Keeper of Geology, Natural
History Museum, has from the first taken a lively interest
in this little book. He kindly helped the author with his
advice on difficult matters, criticising some of the artist’s
preliminary sketches and suggesting improvements in the
restorations. With unfailing courtesy he has ever been
willing, in spite of many demands on his time, to place
his knowledge at the disposal of both the author and
artist ; and in this way certain errors have been avoided.
Besides this, he took the trouble to read through the proof-
sheets, and made suggestions and corrections which have
greatly improved the text. For all this welcome aid the
author begs to return his sincere thanks.

To Mr. Smith Woodward, of the Natural History
Museum, the author is also much indebted for his kindness
in reading through the text and giving valuable informa-
tion with regard to the latest discoveries.

The artist, Mr. Smit, notwithstanding the novelty of
the subject and the difficulties of the task, has thrown
himself heartily into the work of making the twenty-four
restorations of extinct animals. To him, also, the author
is greatly indebted, and considers himself fortunate in
having secured the services of so excellent an artist.

xiv AUTHOR’S PREFACE.

To the publishers his thanks are due for their liberality
in the matter of illustrations, and the readiness with which
they have responded to suggestions.

With regard to minor illustrations the following acknow-
ledgments are due :—

To the Paleontological Society of Great Britain for
permission to reproduce three of the illustrations in Sir
Richard Owen’s great work, British Fossil Reptiles, pub-
lished in their yearly volumes, viz. Figs. 3, 4, and 8.

To Messrs. Bell and Co. for the following cuts from the
late Dr. Gideon A. Mantell’s works: viz. Figs. 12, 14
20, 33, 37, 38.

To Messrs. A. and C. Black for the following cuts from
Owen’s Paleontology: viz. Figs. 51, 54, 50, 57.

Appendix IV. contains a list of some of the works of
which the writer has made use; but it would be impossible
within reasonable limits to enumerate all the separate
papers which have necessarily been consulted. The reader
will find numerous references, such as “ Case Y on Plan,”
in brackets; these refer to the plan given at the end of
the excellent little Guide to the Exhibition Galleries in the
Department of Geology and Paleontology in the Natural
Fistory Museum, Cromwell Road (price one shilling), which
visitors to the Museum are advised to obtain.

PREPACE. EO, SECOND EDITION.

Se SS

THE appearance of a second edition affords the author
a pleasant opportunity of thanking the reading public,
and the Press, for the kind way in which his endeavour
to popularise the results of modern Paleontology has been
received. There seem to be fashions in all things—even
in sciences ; and perhaps the wonderful advances we have
witnessed of late years in the physical sciences on the one
hand, and in biological sciences on the other, may have
tended to throw Paleontology somewhat into the shade.
Let us hope that it will not remain there long.

A large number of illustrations have been added for the
present edition, besides additional matter here and there
immene text. Three of the plates/(wiz: Plates Il X. XV.)
have been redrawn. Plate II. shows the Ichthyosaurus as
interpreted by the latest discovery from Wirtemburg.
Plate X. gives a somewhat different interpretation of the
Stegosaurus, suggested by some remarks of Mr. Lydekker.

A slight change will be noticed in Piate XV. (Brontops).
Plate XVII. is a great improvement on the old drawing
(Fig. 28, old edition) of the Megatherium skeleton. Plate
XXIV., besides containing a valuable portrait of the late
Sir Richard Owen, gives another drawing of the Dinornis
skeleton.

April, 1893.

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CON TENSES:

PREFACE BY Dr. HENRY WOODWARD

AUTHOR’S PREFACE .

PREFACE ‘TO SECOND EDITION

INTRODUCTION .

How Extinct MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED

SEA-SCORPIONS. . . «

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS

THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS .

FLYING DRAGONS.

CHAPTER Vile
THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS .

CHAPTER VIL:
THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS .

CHAPTER VIII.

24,

34

52

61

75

98

XVili CONTENTS.

CHARI ER ee

PAGE

SEA-SERPENTS . eee Poe Om Keke cr SS

CHAPTER X,

SoME AMERICAN MONSTERS . . -« « -« ve oS, Fees

CHAPTER XI.

SOME MIN MOVAN IVIONSEERS ©) 20. "sl en sf ye! ie 5 BI62
CHAPTER XII.
GCrANreSLOTRHS AND ARMADILLOS . 20. . « .¢ © = «© ye lel uenmiyy

CHAPTER XIII.
MISET IVVAIMIMOMEL: os. Sct <<. 4k roc MeO) Gre fe. | ey a te

CHAPTER XIV.
THE MASTODON AND THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS . . . + « « 217

CHAPTER XV.
GIANT PBIRDS i... < dikcsurvew neh pyse SMCs] bss) lve let We, Bae > eee EY

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GREAT IRISH DEER AND STELLER’S SEA-COW . + . - «+ 240
APPENDICES.

MARTE OFS TE ARETE Dy ROCKS Melia i «ia en co eee

Pirie GRBATORACSERPENDT |<. 6 = « « = @ =) |e ueimecaey

III.—Lisrt oF BritTisH LOCALITIES WHERE REMAINS OF THE

MAMMOTH HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED . . . . + ~- « 258
IWATE RAURE ceo 2) ed es lism fee Pel Ud. ce pe ats sas), co. OL
Wi MCHTIGVOSAUIRS 6. co ) Gms is) «co el ye fen (a) ie nem

Tiny CMON cre. we ves AG Je Urel come) nely's g ieee ee cone

bist OF FULE-PAGE, IVeUSt RATIONS:

PLATE

«XT.

/
XXIV.

TO FACE PAGE

A GIGANTIC HORNED DINOSAUR, TRICERATOPS PRORSUS
frontispiece

Sir RICHARD OWEN AND SKELETON OF DINORNIS MAXIMUS
SHAZSCORPIONS «sr os << i «) @ .« ea lease Goes ee
EOTSTLSTTZASRD SMe rey ssi “a> <0 5) | op cin Nenana es
PTERODACTYLS—LONG-NECKED SEA-LIZARD—CUTTLE-FISH
OR) BELEMNIR EO 55 cen ose “at she eee

A GIGANTIC DINOSAUR, BRONTOSAURUS EXCELSUS eer:
THIGH-BONE OF THE LARGEST OF THE DINOSAURS, ATLAN-

TOSAURUSE Stayt vere ce cm cour eee Se a. cy he mrmeee TT
A CARNIVOROUS DINOSAUR, MEGALOSAURUS BUCKLANDI .

A GIGANTIC DINOSAUR, IGUANODON BERNISSARTENSIS. .
A GIGANTIC DINOSAUR, IGUANODON MANTELLI .. .
AN ARMOURED DINOSAUR, SCELIDOSAURUS HARRISONI .
A GIGANTIC ARMOURED DINOSAUR, STEGOSAURUS UN-

GUUARUSH Enis) Ouee-) 0 san ccut en CERI va
GROUP OF SMALL FLYING DRAGONS, OR PTERODACTYLS .
GROUP OF SEA-SERPENTS, ELASMOSAUR, AND FISHES. .
A LARGE EXTINCT MAMMAL, TINOCERAS INGENS . .
A Huce ExTincr MAMMAL, BRONTOPS ROBUSTUS. . .
A GIGANTIC HOOFED MAMMAL, SIVATHERIUM GIGAN-
SKELETON OF GREAT GROUND SLOTH OF SourH AMERICA
GREAT GROUND SLOTH OF SOUTH AMERICA, MEGATHERIUM

AMERICANTUIMGNN se lpN en se css, 8 Ge oe 4) ce al oe

ix
25
41

55
69

71
79

97
IOI

105

113
131
I4I
ISI
161

169
179

181

LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
A GIGANTIC ARMADILLO, GLYPTODON ASPER . . . .- I89
THE MAMMOTH, ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS . . . . « « 205

THE MASTODON OF OHIO, M. AMERICANUS . . . +» e 219
THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS, RHINOCEROS TICHORHINUS ~. 225

PVIOQAEBIRGOS! we lis cw fel wits Mic teu Stott eC
THe GREAT IRISH DEER, CERVUS MEGACEROS . . . . 243

y
SieLEwR’ Ss SEA-COM,, RHVDINA GIGAS Ha lp iemn --ee eine 439)

EIS! OF FIGURES iE XT,

ee renee
FIG. PAGE
1. PTERYGOTUS ANGLICUS . . Seer ea on eu fare a sits 9 20
SSILURTAN MEROSTOMAEA, ... <p ltl) acowre, (cur cieeeMneaeeT) 30
So MCRUNER ONO ROS IGOR 5 4G A ow 6 4 6 6 nh aie)
AMEE EITO OF. LCHTHVOSAUR TD of \ uc. ss) sey £9 ise tee ea cane ne 43
Re OKULE, OF ICHTHYOSAURUS LATIFRONS).. =< «0s. 19, =) 424!
GSKUEL OF [EHEAVOSAUR US) PLATYODONI=: sli el iene tcie sci nn 47)
7. MANDIBLES OF LONG-NECKED SEA-LIZARDS . . ... .- 55
8. SKELETON OF PLESIOSAURUS MACROCEPHALUS. . . . . . 56
g. RESTORED SKELETON OF BRONTOSAURUS EXCELSUS . . . . 67
TO, NECK VERTEBRE OF BRONTOSAURUS, << « « o « « « = 69
ie AD OKO TPIEODOGUS! ch le) Se) bs et aa) mel cl) sot omubry Suey Gene E72
12. LOWER JAW-BONE OF MEGALOSAURUS, WITH TEETH. . . . 77
Pe OKMELELON Ol WMIPGATOSAURUS) 9. tat isl We leh a, 1a ule ans 78
14. PORTION OF A SLAB OF NEW RED SANDSTONE . .. . . 80
i5:) PORTION OF A SLAB, WITH TRACKS’. 5. . Seton ashe ssh) Od
POs LaThth-BONES OF VALLOSAURUS?.)\)) Hiiis ile Dl heels) Ges s, <83
HOKU OF CERATOSAURUS 4 | cli fie isl) eh sche ates re) na) on 22a!
iS; SKULL’ OF CERATOSAURUS NASICORNIS 20s... ser s «| (85
19. SKELETON OF COMPSOGNATHUS LONGIPES . .... . . 86
PoMNOOdWOrdGUANODON . «= %» Hel calls) Sol ll Da 4) 88
21. SKELETON OF IGUANODON BERNISSARTENSIS . . . . . .~ I00
22. SKULL AND SKELETON OF IGUANODON MANTELLI . . . . IOI
Zou ACKSsOHeGUANODON, © inc, utal neuen ew 8} ben TOD
24. RESTORED SKELETON OF SCELIDOSAURUS HARRISONI . . . 105
25. SKELETON OF STEGOSAURUS UNGULATUS . . .. . . . II2
20 AE NERTEBR A OF STEGOSAURUS “. 5 « . +» + + «© « I3
ZIM BONESEORSSTEGOSAURUS< 5 4) 5 «© 8 « + « « Dg

Zon EARESMORSAERGOSAURUS §. 00 6 8 < see we « 6 8 ER

a |
xxii LIST OF LIGCRES IN TEXT.

FIG.
20M LIRAD BOR SURICERATORS es iter l ep te) 6 ee 6 6 et ae
320; SKELETONSOF URICERATOPS PRORSUS . <° . 5 «© . « -

31. Bony SPINES BELONGING TO THE SKIN OF TRICERATOPS . .
32. SKELETON OF DIMORPHODON MACRONYX ..... . -
33. SKELETON OF SCAPHOGNATHUS CRASSIROSTRIS. . . .

PALS KE LETON Ok sere RODACEYLUS SPECTABILIS) (6 sli) jel nis
35. SKELETON OF RHAMPHORHYNCHUS PHYLLURUS . .. . .
Ros SAUL Op IPMN Oo G9 a oa 4 o 5 o =
27S LE TOF SVOSASAURUS ELOREMANIN I.) Ge ve) t= nie iene ws
SOME MTEAOR MOSASAURUS. ..° s*N%s os) 2 2 sb ) @ oe
BoOWwER LOOTH (OF LEIODON fyi = 5 fe eae lee
ROVESNOUTION -VUOSAURUS. (¢ Rien. S Oh 5 4 G) Shae
41. SKELETON OF CLIDASTES CINERIARUM . . «4 . «. -© « «
Ait, SVR OO AGMENNIRU 5 5 6 6 Bm 68 Do o 5 os
A2 SKELETON OF TINOCERAS INGENSS 9 - «<= = ae
a2) SKULL OF DINOCERAS MIRABMUEMRMES =n ts . = 2 4 so enue
44. CAST OF BRAIN-CAVITY OF DINOCERAS MIRABILE. . . . .
45. SKELETON OF BRONTOPS ROBUSEUS, 252% - 6° 8 3 Se
46. SKULL @F SIVATHERIUM-GIGANTEUM . 6 . + . . . «
47. SKELETON OF SIVATHERIUM GIGANTEUM . . - . . =. -
48. RESTORED FIGURE OF GIGANTIC TORTOISE, COLOSSOCHELYS
ATLAS . . . e . . . . ° . . - . . . . .

49. THE ELEPHANT VICTORIOUS OVER THE TORTOISE, SUPPORTING
THE WORLD, AND UNFOLDING THE MYSTERIES OF THE
SOMATINA: SI VAMENSIS co utte Memmme ants) Uae tet oi tells Mes ine Seet nr

50. SKELETON OF SCELIDOTHERIUM - .+ + - + » + © .

51. EXTINCT GIGANTIC ARMADILLO, GLYPTODON CLAVIPES. . .

52. SKELETON OF MAMMOTH, ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS. «© - «= -

53. FIGURE OF THE MAMMOTH, ENGRAVED ON MAMMOTH Ivory

54. SKELETON OF MASTODON ARVERNENSIS~ .« +. * + «© =|
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EXTINCT: POMS TERS.

INTRODUCTION.

“The earth hath gathered to her breast again
And yet again, the millions that were born
Of her unnumbered, unremembered tribes.”

LET us see if we can get some glimpses of the primeval inhabi-
tants of the world, that lived and died while as yet there were no
men and women having authority over the fishes of the sea and
the fowls of the air.

We shall, perhaps, find this antique world quite as strange as
the fairy-land of Grimm or Lewis Carroll. True, it was not
inhabited by “‘slithy toves” or “jabber-wocks,” but by real
beasts, of whose shapes, sizes, and habits much is already known
—a good deal more than might at first be supposed. And yet,
real as it allis, this antique world—this panorama of scenes that
have for ever passed away—is a veritable fairy-land. In those
days of which geologists tell us, the principal parts were played,
not by kings and queens, but by creatures many of which
were very unlike those we see around us now. And yet it is no
fairy-land after all, where impossible things happen, and where
impossible dragons figure largely; but only the same old
world in which you and I were born. Everything you will see

here is quite true. All these monsters once lived. ‘Truth is
B

2 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

stranger than fiction; and perhaps we shall enjoy our visit to
this fairy-land all the more for that reason. For not even the
dragons supposed to have been slain by armed knights in old
times, when people gave ear to any tale, however extravagant,
could equal in size or strength the real dragons we shall presently
meet with, whose actual bones may be seen in the Natura!
History Museum at South Kensington.

Many people who visit this great museum and find their way
to the geological galleries on the right, pass hastily by the cases
of bones, teeth, and skeletons. These things, it seems, fail to
interest them. They do not know how to interpret them. They
cannot picture to themselves the kinds of creatures to which the
relics once belonged ; and so they pass them by and presently
go to the more attractive collection of stuffed birds on the other
side. There they see the feathered tribes of the air all beautifully
arranged ; some poised in the air by almost invisible wires ; some
perched on branches: but all surrounded by grass, flowers, and
natural objects, imitated with marvellous reality, so that they see
the birds as they really are in nature, and can almost fancy they
hear them singing.

Now, it has often occurred to the present writer that some-
thing more might be done for the long-neglected “lost creations ”
of the world, to bring them out of their obscurity, that they
may be made to tell to the passer-by their wondrous story. We
can, however, well imagine some of our readers asking, “Can
these dry bones live?” ‘Yes,” we would say, “‘they can be
made to live; reason and imagination will, if we give them
proper play, provide us eyes wherewith to see the world’s lost
creations.” To such men as Cuvier, Owen, Huxley, and others,
these dry bones do live. It will be our object to describe to the
reader some of the wonderful results that have rewarded the
lifelong labours of such great men. We shall take some of
the largest and strangest forms of life that once lived, and try to
picture them as they really were when alive, whether walking on

INTRODUCTION.

3
land, swimming in the sea, or flying in the air; to understand
the meanings of their more obvious structures ; and to form some
conclusions with regard to their habits, as well as to find out, if
possible, their relations,—as far as such questions have been
answered by those most qualified to settle these difficult
matters.

All technical details, such as the general reader is unfamiliar
with, will be as far as possible suppressed. Let us fancy a long
procession of extinct monsters passing in single file before us,
and ourselves endeavouring to pick out their ‘‘ points” as they
present themselves to the eye of imagination. It is not, be it
remembered, mere imagination that guides the man of science in
such matters, for all his conclusions are carefully based on reason ;
-and when conclusions are given, we shall endeavour to show how
they have been arrived at.

For millions of years countless multitudes of living animals
have played their little parts on the earth and passed away, to be
buried up in the oozy beds of the seas of old time, or entombed
with the leaves that sank in the waters of primeval lakes. The
majority of these perished beyond all recovery, leaving not a
trace behind ; yet a vast number of fossilised remains have been,
in various ways, preserved; sometimes almost as completely
as if Dame Nature had thoughtfully embalmed them for our
instruction and delight.

Down in those old seas and lakes she kept her great museum,
in order to preserve for us a selection of her treasures. In
course of time she slowly raised up sea-beds and lake-bottoms to
make them into dry land. This museum is everywhere around
us. We have but to enter quarries and railway cuttings, or to
search in coal-mines, or under cliffs at the seaside, and we can
consult her records. As the ancient Egyptians built tombs,
pyramids, and temples, from which we may learn their manner
of life and partly read their history, so Nature has entombed, not
one race only, but many races of the children of life. Her

4 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

records are written in strange hieroglyphs, yet it is not difficult to
interpret their meaning; and thus many an old story, many an
old scene, may be pictured in the mind of man.

Shall we call this earth-drama a tragedy or a comedy? Doubt-
less tragic scenes occurred at times; as, for instance, when
fierce creatures engaged in deadly combat: and _ probably
amusing, if not comic, incidents took place occasionally, such as
might have provoked us to laughter, had we been there to see
them. But let us simply call it a drama. Backgrounds of
scenery were not wanting. Then, as now, the surface of the
earth was clothed with vegetation, and strange cattle pastured on
grassy plains. Vegetation was at times very luxuriant. The
forests of the coal period, with their giant reeds and club-moss
trees, must have made a strange picture. Then, as now, there
rose up from the plains lofty ranges of mountains, reaching to
the clouds, their summits clothed with the eternal snows. These,
too, played their part, feeding the streams and the rivers that
meandered over the plains, bringing life and fertility with them,
as they do now. The sun shone and the wind blew: sometimes
gently, so that the leaves just whispered in an evening breeze ; at
other times so violently that the giants of the forest swayed to
and fro, and the seas lashed themselves furiously against rocky
coasts. Nor were the underground forces of the earth less active
than they are now: volcanic eruptions often took place on a mag-
nificent scale ; volcanoes poured out fiery lava streams for leagues
beneath their feet; great showers of ashes and fine dust were
ejected in the air, so that the sun was darkened for a time, and
the surface of the sea was covered for many miles with floating
pumice and volcanic dust, which in time sank to the bottom,
and was made into hard rock, such as we now find on the top of
Snowdon.

Earthquake shocks were quite as frequent, and no doubt the
ground swayed to and fro, or was rent open as some unusually
great earth-movement took place, and perhaps a mountain

INTRODUCTION. 5

range was raised several feet or yards higher. All this we learn
from the testimony of the rocks beneath our feet. It only
requires the use of a little imagination to conjure up scenes of
the past, and paint them as on a moving diorama.

We shall not, however, dwell at any length on the scenery, or
the vegetation that clothed the landscape at different periods;
for these features are sufficiently indicated in the beautiful
drawings of extinct animals by our artist, Mr. J. Smit.

The researches of the illustrious Baron Cuvier, at Paris, as
embodied in his great work, Ossemens Fossiles, gave a great
impetus to the study of organic remains. It was he who laid the
foundations of the science of Paleeontology,’ which, though much
has already been accomplished, yet has a great future before it.
Agassiz, Owen, Huxley, Marsh, Cope, and others, following in his
footsteps, have greatly extended its boundaries; but he was the
pioneer.

Before his time fossil forms were very little known, and still
less understood. His researches, especially among vertebrates,
or back-boned animals, revealed an altogether undreamed-of
wealth of entombed remains. It is true the old and absurd notion
that fossils were mere ‘‘sports of Nature,” sometimes bearing
more or less resemblance to living animals, but still only an
accidental (!) resemblance, had been abandoned by Leibnitz,
Buffon, and Pallas; and that Daubenton had actually compared
the fossil bones of quadrupeds with those of living forms; while
Camper declared his opinion that some of these remains belonged
to extinct species of quadrupeds.

It is to Cuvier, however, that the world owes the first systematic
application of the science of comparative anatomy, which he
himself had done so much to place on a sound basis, to the
study of the bones of fossil animals. He paid great attention to

1 Paleontology is the science which treats of the living beings, whether
animal or vegetable, which have inhabited this globe at past periods in its
history. (Greek—fa/aios, ancient ; onta, beings ; /ogos, discourse.)

6 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the relative shapes of animals, and the different developments of
the same kind of bones in various animals, and especially to the
nature of their teeth. So great did his experience and knowledge
become, that he rarely failed in naming an animal from a part of its
skeleton. He appreciated more clearly than others before him
the mutual dependence of the various parts of an animal’s organi-
sation. ‘The organism,” he said, ‘‘ forms a connected unity, in
which the single parts cannot change without modifications in the
other parts.”

It will hardly be necessary to give examples of this now well-
known truth; but, just to take one case: the elephant has a
long proboscis with which it can reach the ground, and con-
sequently its neck is quite short; but take away the long
proboscis, and you would seriously interfere with the relation of
various parts of its structure to each other. How, then, could
it reach or pick up anything lying on the ground? Other
changes would have to follow: either its legs would require to be
shortened, or its neck to be lengthened. In every animal, as in
a complex machine, there is a mutual dependence of the different
parts.

As he progressed in these studies, Cuvier was able with
considerable success to restore extinct animals from their fossilised
remains, to discover their habits and manner of life, and to point
out their nearest living ally. To him we owe the first complete
demonstration of the possibility of restoring an extinct animal.
His ‘‘Law of Correlation” however, has been found to be not
infallible ; as Professor Huxley has shown, it has exceptions.
It expresses our experience among living animals, but, when
applied to the more ancient types of life, is liable to be mis-
leading.

To take one out of many examples of this law: Carnivorous
animals, such as cats, lions, and tigers, have claws in their feet,
very different from the hoofs of an ox, which is herbivorous ;
while the teeth of the former group are very different to those of

INTRODUCTION. ¥

the latter. Thus the teeth and limbs have a certain definite
relation to each other, or, in other words, are correlated. Again,
horned quadrupeds are all herbivorous (or graminivorous), and
have hoofs to their feet. The following amusing anecdote serves
to illustrate Cuvier’s law. One of his students thought he would
try and frighten his master, and, having dressed up as a wild
beast, entered Cuvier’s bedroom by night, and, presenting himself
by his bedside, said in hollow tones, ‘‘ Cuvier, Cuvier, ’ve come
to eat you!” The great naturalist, who on waking up was able
to discern something with horns and hoofs, simply remarked,
** What! horns, hoofs—graminivorous—you can’t!” What better
lesson could the master have given the pupil to help him to
remember his “‘ Law of Correlation ” ?

Cuvier’s great work, entitled Ossemens Fossiles, will long remain
an imperishable monument of the genius and industry of the
greatest pioneer in this region of investigation. This work
proved beyond a doubt to his astonished contemporaries the
great antiquity of the tribes of animals now living on the surface
of the earth. It proved more than that, however ; for it showed
the existence of a great philosophy in Nature which linked the
past with the present in a scheme that pointed to a continuity of
life during untold previous ages. All this was directly at variance
with the prevalent ideas of his time, and consequently his views
were regarded by many with alarm, and he received a good deal
of abuse—a fate which many other original thinkers before him
have shared.

It is somewhat difficult for people living now, and accustomed
to modern teaching, to realise how novel were the conclusions
announced by Cuvier. In his Déscourse on the Revolutions of the
Surface of the Globe, translated into most European languages
under the title Zheory of the Earth, he lays down, among
others, the two following propositions :—

1. That all organised existences were not created at the same
time; but at different times, probably very remote from each

8 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

other—vegetables before animals, mollusca and fishes before

reptiles, aad the latter before mammals.
2. That fossil remains in the more recent strata are those which

approach nearest to the present type of corresponding living

species.
Teaching such as this gave a new impetus to the study of

organic remains, and Palsontology, as a science, began with

Cuvier.

CHAPTER: I

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED.

“Geology, beyond almost every other science, offers fields of research
adapted to all capacities and to every condition and circumstance of life in
which we may be placed. For while some of its phenomena require the
highest intellectual powers, and the greatest attainments in abstract science for
their successful investigation, many of its problems may be solved by the most
ordinary intellect, and facts replete with the deepest interest may be gleaned
by the most casual observer.’”-—MANTELL.

LET us suppose we are visiting a geological museum for the first
time, passing along from one department to another with ever-
increasing wonder—now admiring the beautiful polished marbles
from Devonshire, with their delicate corals, or the wonderful
fishes from the Old Red Sandstone, with their plates of enamel ;
now the delicate shells and ammonites from the Lias or Oolites,
with their pearly lustre still preserved; now the white fresh-
looking shells from the Isle of Wight ; now the ponderous bones
and big teeth of ancient monsters from the Wealden beds of
Sussex. The question might naturally occur, ‘“‘ How were all
these creatures preserved from destruction and decay, and sealed
up so securely that it is difficult to believe they are as old as the
geologists tell us they are?” It will be worth our while to con-
sider this before we pass on to describe the creatures themselves.

Now, in the first place, ‘‘ fossils” are not always ‘‘ petrifactions,”
as some people seem to think ; that is to say, they are not all
turned into stone. ‘This is true in many cases, no doubt, yet one
frequently comes across the remains of plants and animals that

10 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

have undergone very little change, and have, as it were, been
simply sealed up. The state of a fossil depends on several cir-
cumstances, such as the soil, mud, or other medium in which it
may happen to be preserved. Again, the newest, or most recent,
fossils are generally the least altered. We have fossils of all ages,
and in all states of preservation. As examples of fossils very
little altered, we may take the case of the wonderful collection of
bones discovered by Professor Boyd Dawkins in caves in various
parts of Great Britain. The results of many years of research
are given in his most interesting book on Cave-Hunting. ‘This
enthusiastic explorer and geologist has discovered the remains of
a great many animals, some of which are quite extinct, while
others are still living in this country. These remains belong to a
late period, when lions, tigers, cave-bears, wolves, hyzenas, and
reindeer inhabited our country. In some cases the caves were
the dens of hyznas, who brought their prey into caverns in
our limestone rocks, to devour them at their leisure; for the
marks of their teeth may yet be seen on the bones. In other
cases the bones seem to have been washed into the caves by old
streams that have ceased to run; but in all cases they are fairly
fresh, though often stained by iron-rust brought in by water that
has dissolved iron out of various rocks—for iron is a substance
met with almost everywhere in nature. Sometimes they are
buried up in a layer of soil, or ‘‘cave-earth,” and at other times
in a layer of stalagmite—a deposit of carbonate of lime gradually
formed on the floors of caves by the evaporation of water charged
with carbonate of lime.

Air and water are great destroyers of.animal and vegetable
substances from which life has departed. The autumn leaves
that fall by the wayside soon undergo change, and become at last
separated or resolved into their original elements. In the same way
when any wild animal, such as a bird or rabbit, dies in an exposed
place, its flesh decays under the influence of rain and wind, so that
before long nothing but dry bones is left. Hamlet’s wish that

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 11

this “too too solid flesh would melt” is soon realised after death E
and that active chemical element in the air known as oxygen, in
breathing which we live, has a tenfold power over dead matter,
slowly causing chemical actions somewhat similar to those that
take place in a burning candle, whereby decaying flesh is con-
verted into water-vapour and carbonic acid gas. Thus we see
that oxygen not only supports life, but breaks up into simpler
forms the unwholesome and dangerous products of decaying
matter, thus keeping the atmosphere sweet and pure; but in
time, even the dry bones of the bird or rabbit, though able for
a longer period to resist the attacks of the atmosphere, crumble
into dust, and serve to fertilise the soil that once supported
them.

Now, if water and air be excluded, it is wonderful how long
even the most perishable things may be preserved from this other-
wise universal decay. In the Edinburgh museum of antiquities
may be seen an old wooden cask of butter that has lain for
centuries in peat—which substance has a curiously preservative
power ; and human bodies have been dug out of Irish peat with
the flesh well preserved, which, from the nature of the costume
worn by the person, we can tell to be very ancient. Meat packed
in tins, so as to be entirely excluded from the air, may be kept a
very long time, and will be found to be quite fresh and fit for use.

But air and water have a way of penetrating into all sorts of
places, so that in nature they are almost everywhere. Water can
slowly filter through even the hardest rocks, and since it contains
dissolved air, it causes the decay of animal or vegetable sub-
stances. Take the case of a dead leaf falling into a lake, or some
quiet pool ina river. It sinks to the bottom, and is buried up
in gravel, mud, or sand. Now, our leaf will stand a very poor
chance of preservation on a sandy or gravelly bottom, because
these materials, being porous, allow the water to pass through
them easily. But if it settles down on fine mud it may be covered
up and become a fossil. In time the soft mud will harden into

iP EXTINCT MONSTERS.

clay or shale, retaining a delicate impression of the leaf; and
even after thousands of years, the brown body of the leaf will be
there, only partly changed. In the case of the plants found in
coal, the lapse of ages since they were buried up has been so
great (and the strata have been so affected by the great pressure
and by the earth’s internal heat) that certain chemical changes
have converted leaves and stems into carbon and some of its
compounds, much in the same way that, if you heat wood in a
closed vessel, you convert it into charcoal, which is mostly carbon.
The coal we burn in our fires is entirely of vegetable origin, and
every seam in a coal-mine is a buried forest of trees, ferns, reeds,
and other plants.

The reader will understand how it is that rocks composed of
hardened sand or gravel, sandstones and conglomerates, contain
but few fossils; while, on the other hand, such rocks as clay,
shale, slate, and limestone often abound in fossils, because they are
formed of what was once soft mud, that sealed up and protected
corals, shell-fish, sea-urchins, fishes, and other marine animals.
Had they been covered up in sand the chances are that percolating
water would have slowly dissolved the shells and corals, the hard
coats of the crabs, and the bones of the fishes, all of which are
composed of carbonate of lime ; and we know that is a substance
easily dissolved by water.

It is in the rocks formed during the later geological periods
that we find fossils least changed from their original state ; for
time works great changes, and too little time has elapsed since
those periods for any considerable alterations to have taken place.
But when we come to examine some of the earlier rocks, which
have been acted upon in various ways for long periods of time,
such as the pressure of vast piles of overlying rocks, and the
percolation of water charged with mineral substances (water
sometimes warmed by the earth’s internal heat), then we may
expect to find the remains of the world’s lost creations in a much
more mineralised condition. Every fossil-collector must be familiar

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 12

o

with examples of changes of this kind. For instance, shells
originally composed of carbonate of lime are often found to have
been turned into flint or silica. Another curious change is illus-
trated in the case of a stratum found in Cambridgeshire and other
counties. In this remarkable layer, only about a foot in thickness,
one frequently finds bones and teeth of fishes and reptiles. These,
however, have all undergone a curious change, whereby they
have been converted into phosphate of lime—a compound of
phosphorus and lime. It abounds in ‘‘nodules,” or lumps, of
this substance, which, along with thousands of fossils, are every
year ground up and converted by a chemical process into valuable
artificial manure for the farmer.

The soft parts of animals, as we have said before, cannot be
preserved in a fossil state ; but, as if to compensate for this loss,
we sometimes meet with the most faithful and delicate impres-
sions. Thus, cuttle-fishes have, in some instances, left, on the
clays which buried them up, impressions of their soft, long arms,
or tentacles, and, as the mud hardened into solid rock, the im-
pressions are fixed imperishably. Examples of these interesting
records may be seen at the Natural History Museum at South
Kensington. Even soft jelly-fishes have left their mark on certain
rocks! At a place in Bavaria, called Solenhofen, there is a
remarkably fine-grained limestone containing a multitude of
wonderful impressions. This stone is well known to lithographers,
and is largely used in printing. On it the oldest known bird has
left its skeleton and faithful impressions of its feathers.

The footprints of birds and reptiles are by no means un-
common. Such records are most valuable, for a great deal may
be learned from even a footprint as to the nature of the animal
that made it (see p. 79).

Since the greater number of animals described in this book are
reptiles, quadrupeds, and other inhabitants of the land, and only
a few had their home in the sea, we must endeavour to try and
understand how their remains may have been preserved. Our

14 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

object in writing this book is to interpret their story, and, as it
were, to bring them to life again. Each one must be made to tell
its own story, and that story will be far from complete if we cannot
form some idea of how it found its way into a watery grave, and
so was added to Nature’s museum. For this purpose we must
briefly explain to the reader how the rocks we see around us
have been deposited ; for these rocks are the tombs in which lost
creations lie.

Go into any ordinary quarry, where the men are at work,
getting out the stone in blocks to be used in building, or for use
on the roads, or for some other purpose, and you will be pretty
sure to notice at the first glance that the rock is arranged as if it
had been built up in layers. Now, this is true of all rocks that
have been laid down by the agency of water—as most of them have
been. True, there are exceptions, but every rule has its exceptions.
If you went into a granite quarry at Aberdeen, or a basalt quarry
near Edinburgh, you would not see these layers; but such rocks
as these do not contain fossils. ‘They have been mainly formed
by the action of great heat, and were forced up to the surface of
the earth by pressure from below. As they slowly cooled, the
mineral substances of which they were formed gradually crystallised ;
and it is this crystalline state, together with the signs of move-
ment, that tells us of their once heated state. Such rocks are
said to be of igneous origin (Lat. zgwzs, fire). But nearly all the
other rocks were formed by the action of water—that is, under
water,—and hence are known to geologists as aqueous deposits
(Lat. agua, water). They may be considered as sediments that
slowly settled down in seas, lakes, or at the mouths of rivers.
Such deposits are in the course of being formed at the present day.
Allround our coasts mud, sand, and gravel are being accumulated,
layer by layer. These materials are constantly being swept
off the land by the action of rain and rivers, and carried down to
the sea. Perhaps, when staying at the sea-side, you may have
noticed, after rainy ard rough weather, how the sea, for some

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 15

distance from the shore, is discoloured with mud—especially at
the mouth of ariver. The sand, being heavy, soon sinks down,
and this is the reason why sand-bars so frequently block the
entrance to rivers. Then again, the waves of the sea beat against
the sea-shore and undermine the cliffs, bringing down great
fragments, which after a time are completely broken up and
worn down into rounded pebbles, or even fine sand and mud. It
is very easy to see that in this way large quantities of sand, gravel,
and mud are continually supplied to our seas. We can picture
how they will settle down ; the sand not far from the shore, and
the fine mud further out to sea. When the rough weather ceases,
the river becomes smaller and flows less rapidly, so that when
the coarse débris of the land has settled down to form layers, or
strata, of sand and gravel, then the fine mud will begin to settle
down also, and will form a layer overlying them or further out.
Thus we learn, from a little observation of what is now going on,
how layers of sand and mud, such as we see in a quarry, were
made thousands and thousands of years ago.

When we think of all the big rivers and small streams con-
tinually flowing into the sea, we shall begin to realise what a
great work rain and rivers are doing in making the rocks of the
future. If, at a later period, a slight upheaval of the sea-bed were
to take place so as to bring it above water, and such is very likely,
these materials would be found neatly arranged in layers, and
more or less hardened into solid rock.

The reader may, perhaps, find it rather hard at first to
realise that in this simple way vast deposits of rock are being
formed in the seas of the present day, and that the finer
material thus derived from a continent may be carried by
ocean currents to great distances; but soit is. Over thousands
of square miles of ocean, deposits are being gradually accumu-
lated which will doubtless be some day turned into hard rock.
Just to take one example: it has been found that in the
Atlantic Ocean, a distance of over two hundred miles from the

16 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

mouth of that great river, the Amazon, the sea is discoloured by
fine sediment.

There is another kind of rock frequently met with, the building
up of which cannot be explained in the way we have pointed
out ; and that is limestone. ‘This rock has not been deposited as
a sediment, like clays and sandstones, but geologists have good
reasons for believing that it has been gradually formed in the
deeper and clearer parts of oceans by the slow accumulation of
marine shells, corals, and other creatures, whose bodies are
partly composed of carbonate of lime. This seems incredible
at first, but the proofs are quite convincing.! As Professor
Huxley well remarked, there is as good evidence that chalk has
been built up by the accumulation of minute shells as that the
Pyramids were built by the ancient Egyptians.

The science of geology reveals the startling fact that all the
great series of the stratified rocks, whose united thickness is over
80,000 feet, has been mainly accumulated under water, either by
the action of those powerful geological agents—rain and rivers—
or through the agency of myriads of tiny marine animals. When
we have grasped this idea, we have learned our first, and, perhaps,
most useful lesson in geology.

Now let us apply what has been above explained to the question
immediately before us. We want to know how the skeletons of
animals living on land came to be buried up under water, among
the stratified rocks that are to be seen all over our country, and
most of which were made under the sea.

We can answer this question by going to Nature herself, in
order to find out what is actually going on at the present time, by
inquiring into the habits of land animals, their surroundings, and
the accidents to which they are hable at sundry times and in
divers manners. Itis by this simple method of studying present
actions that nearly all difficult questions in geology may be solved.
The leading principle of the geologist is to interpret the past by

? See The Autobiography of the Earth, p. 223.

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 17

the light of the present, or, in other words, to find out what
happens now, in order to learn what took place ages ago ; for itis
clear that the world has been going on in the same way for at
least as far back as geological history can take us. There has
been a uniformity, or sameness, in Nature’s actions ever since
living things first dwelt on the earth.

Just as rivers are mainly responsible for bringing down to the
sea the materials of which rocks are made, so these universal
carrying agents are the means by which the bodies of many
animals that live in the plains, over which they wander, are
brought to their last resting-place. We have only to consult the
records of great floods to see what fearful havoc they sometimes
make among living things, and how the dead bodies are swept
away.

Great floods rise rapidly, so that the herds of wild animals
pasturing on grassy plains are surprised by the rising waters, and,
being unable to withstand the force of the water, are hurried
along, and so drowned. When dead they sink to the bottom,
and may, in some cases, be buried up in the débris hurried
along by the river; but as a rule their bodies, being swollen by
the gases formed by decomposing flesh, rise again to the surface,
and consequently may be carried along for many a mile, till they
reach some lake, or perhaps right down to the mouth of a river,
and so may be taken out to sea.

One or two examples will be given to show how important is
the action of such floods. Sir Charles Lyell has given some
striking illustrations of this. There was a memorable flood in
the southern borders of Scotland on the 24th of June, 1794,
which caused great destruction in the region of the Solway Firth.
Heavy rains had fallen, so that every stream entering the firth
was greatly swollen. Not only sheep and cattle, but even herds-
men and shepherds were drowned. When the flood had subsided,
a fearful spectacle was seen on a large sand-bank, called “ the ©
beds of Esk,” where the waters meet; for on this one bank were

e

18 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

found collected together the bodies of 9 black cattle, 3 horses,
1840 sheep, 45 dogs, 180 hares, together with those of many
smaller animals, also the corpses of two men and one woman.

Humboldt, the celebrated traveller, says that when, at certain
seasons, the large rivers of South America are swollen by heavy
rains, great numbers of quadrupeds are drowned every year.
Troops of wild horses that graze in the ‘‘savannahs,” or grassy
plains, are said to be swept away in thousands.

In Java, in the year 1699, the Batavian River was flooded
during an earthquake, and drowned buffaloes, tigers, rhinoceroses,
deer, apes, crocodiles, and other wild beasts, which were brought
down to the coast by the current.

In tropical countries, where very heavy rains fall at times, and
rivers become rapidly swollen, floods are a great source of danger
to man and beast. Probably the greater number of the bodies
of animals thus drowned find their way into lakes, through
which rivers flow, and never reach the sea; and if the growth of
sediment in such lakes goes on fairly rapidly, their remains may
be buried up, and so preserved. But in many cases the bones
fall one by one from the floating carcase, and so may in that way
be scattered at random over the bottom of the lake, or the bed
of a river at its mouth. In hot countries such bodies, on reach-
ing the sea, run a great chance of being instantly devoured by
sharks, alligators, and other carnivorous animals. But during
very heavy floods, the waters that reach the sea are so heavily
laden with mud, that these predaceous animals are obliged to retire
to some place where the waters are clear, so that at such times
the dead bodies are more likely to escape their ravages ; and, at
the same time, the mud with which the waters are charged falls
so tapidly that it may quickly cover them up. We shall find
further on that this explanation probably applies to the case of
the ‘‘fish-lizards,” whose remains are found in the Lias formation
(see p. 51).

But, for several reasons, sedimentary rocks formed in lakes

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 19

are much more likely to contain the remains of land animals,
than those that were formed in seas, and they are more likely
to be in a complete state of preservation. Within the last
century, five or six small lakes in Scotland, which had been
artificially Grained, yielded the remains of several hundred skeletons
of stags, oxen, boars, horses, sheep, dogs, hares, foxes, and
wolves. There are two ways in which these animals may have
met with a watery grave. In the first place, they may have got
mired on going into the water, or in trying to land on the other
side, after swimming across. Any one who knows Scotch lakes
will be familiar with the fact that their margins are often most
treacherous ground for bathers. The writer has more than once
found it necessary to be very cautious on wading into a lake
while fishing, or in search of plants. Secondly, when such lakes
are frozen over in winter, the ice is often very treacherous in
consequence of numerous springs; and animals attempting to
cross may be easily drowned. No remains of birds were dis-
covered in these lakes, in spite of the fact that, until drained,
they were largely frequented by water-fowl. But it must be
remembered that birds are protected by their powers of flight
from perishing in such ways as other animals frequently do.
And, even should they die on the water, their bodies are not
likely to be submerged ; for, being light and feathery, they do
not sink, but continue floating until the body rots away, or is
devoured by some creature such as a hungry pike. For these
reasons the remains of birds are unfortunately very rare in the
stratified rocks; and hence our knowledge of the bird life of
former ages is slight,

THE IMPERFECTION OF THE RECORD.

A very little consideration will serve to convince us that the
record which Nature has kept in the stratified rocks is an incom-
plete one. There are many reasons why it must be so. It is

20 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

not to be expected that these rocks should contain anything
like a complete collection of the remains of the various tribes
of plants and animals that from time to time have flourished in
seas, lakes, and estuaries, or on islands and continents of the
world. In endeavouring to trace the course of life on the globe
at successive periods, we are continually met by want of evidence
due to the “imperfection of the record ””—to use Darwin’s phrase.
The reasons are not far to seek. The preservation of organic
remains, or even of impressions thereof, in sedimentary strata is,
to some extent, a matter of chance. It is obvious that no wholly
soft creature, such as a jelly-fish, can be preserved ; although on
some strata they have left impressions telling of their existence
at a very early period.

A creature, to become fossilised, must possess some hard part,
such as a shell, eg. an oyster (fossil oysters abound in some
strata) ; or a hard chitinous covering, like that of the shrimp, or
the trilobites of Silurian times; or a skeleton, such as all the
backboned (vertebrate) animals possess.

But even creatures that had skeletons have not by any means
always been preserved. Bones, when left on the bottom of the
sea, where no sediment, or very little, is forming, will decay, and
so disappear altogether. As Darwin points out, we are in error
in supposing that over the greater part of the ocean-bed of the
present day sediment is deposited fast enough to seal up organic
remains before they can decay. Over a large part of the ocean-
bed such cannot be the case; and this conclusion has, of late
years, been confirmed by the observations made during the
fruitful voyage of H.M.S. Challenger in the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans.

Again, even in shallower parts of the old seas, where sand or
mud was once deposited, fossilisation was somewhat accidental ; for
some materials, being porous, allow of the percolation of water,
and in this way shells, bones, etc., have been dissolved and lost.
Thus sandstone strata are always barren in fossils compared to

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED, 21

shales and limestones, which are much less pervious. To take
examples from our own country, the New Red Sandstone of the
south-west of England, the midland counties, Cheshire, and other
parts contains very few fossils indeed, while the clays and lime-
stones of the succeeding Lias period abound in organic remains
of all sorts. Even insects have left delicate impressions of their
wings and bodies! while shells, corals, encrinites, fish-teeth, and
bones of saurians are found in great numbers.

Again, it must be borne in mind that the series of stratified
rocks known to geologists is not complete or unbroken. They
have been well compared to the leaves of a book on history, of
which whole chapters and many separate pages have been torn
out. These gaps, or ‘‘ breaks,” are due to what is called ‘‘ denu-
dation ;” that is to say, a great many rocks, after having been
slowly deposited in water, have been upraised to form dry land,
and then, being subjected for ages to the destroying action of
“rain and rivers,” or the waves of the sea, have been largely
destroyed. Such rocks, in the language of geology, have been
“ denuded ;” that is, stripped off, so that the underlying rocks are
left bare.

But the process of rock-making does not go on continuously in
any one area. Sedimentary strata have been formed in slowly
sinking areas. But, if subsidence ceases, and the downward
movement becomes an upward one, then the bed of the sea is
converted into dry land, and the geological record is broken ; for
aqueous strata do not form on dry land. Blown sands and
terrestrial lava-flows are exceptions ; but such accumulations are
very small and insignificant, and may therefore be neglected,
especially as they contain no fossils.

In this way, as well as by the process of ‘“ denudation” already
alluded to, breaks occur; and these breaks often represent long
intervals of time. There are several such gaps in the British
series of stratified rocks; and it is partly by means of these
breaks, during which important geographical and other changes

22 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

took place, that sedimentary rocks have been classified and
arranged in groups representing geological periods. Thus, the
Cainozoic, or Tertiary, rocks of the Thames’ basin are separated
by a long “break” from those of the preceding Cretaceous
period. During that interval great changes in animal life took
place, whereby, in the course of evolution, new types appeared on
the scene. (See Table of Strata, Appendix I.)

Another cause interfering with the record is to be found in
those important internal changes that have taken place in
stratified rocks—often over large areas—which may be ascribed
to the influence of heat and pressure combined. ‘This process of
change, whereby soft deposits have been altered or ‘‘ metamor-
phosed ” into hard crystalline rocks, is known as ‘‘ metamorphism.”
Metamorphic rocks have lost not only their original structure
and appearance, but also their included organic remains, or
fossils. Thus, when a soft limestone has been converted by
these means into crystalline statuary marble, any fossils it may
once have contained have been destroyed. It is true that this
applies more to older and lower deposits,—for the lowest are
the oldest—but there can be no doubt that valuable records of
the forms of life which peopled the world in former periods
have been lost by this means.

And lastly, it must ever be borne in mind that, as yet, our know-
ledge of the stratified rocks of the earth’s crust is very limited. In
course of time, no doubt, this deficiency will be to a great
extent made good ; but it will take a long time. Already, within
the last thirty years, the labours of zealous geologists in the
colonies and in various countries have added largely to our know-
ledge of the geological record. Still, only a small portion of the
earth’s surface has at present been explored; and doubtless one
may look forward to future discoveries of extinct forms of animal
and plant life as wonderful and strange as those that have been
of late years unearthed in the “far West,” in Africa, and India.
The Siwalik Hills of Northern India offer a rich harvest of fossils

HOW EXTINCT MONSTERS ARE PRESERVED. 23

to future explorers. Already, one remarkable and large horned
quadruped has come from this region; and it is known that other
valuable treasures are sealed up within these hills, only awaiting
the ‘open sesame” of some enterprising explorer to bring them
to light.

As previously pointed out, deposits formed in lakes are the
most promising field for geologists in search of the remains of
old terrestrial quadrupeds and reptiles ; but, unfortunately, such
deposits are rare.

It is very much to be regretted that the carelessness and in-
difference of ignorant workmen in quarries, clay-pits, and railway
cuttings have sometimes been the cause of valuable fossils being
broken up, and so lost for ever. Unless they are accustomed to
the visits of fossil-collectors who will pay them liberally for their
finds, the men will not take the trouble to preserve any bones
they may come across in the course of their work. (An example
of this negligence will be found on p. 95.) But when once they
realise that such finds have what political economists call an
“exchange value,” or, in other words, can be turned into money,
it is astonishing what zealous guardians of Nature’s treasures they
become! For this reason collectors often find what Professor
Bonney calls the “silver hammer”—in other words, cash—more
effective than the iron implement they carry with them.

CHAP TE Ry tie

SEA-SCORPIONS.

*¢ And some rin up the hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stanes to
pieces wi’ hammers like sae many road-makers run daft. They say ’tis to see
how the warld was made.” —S?¢. Ronan’s Well.

Our first group of monsters is taken from a tribe of armed
warriors that lived in the seas of a very ancient period in the
world’s history. Like the crabs and lobsters inhabiting the coasts
of Britain, they possessed a coat of armour, and jointed bodies,
supplied with limbs for crawling, swimming, or seizing their prey.
They were giants in their day, far eclipsing in size any of their
relations that have lived on to the present time. Some of them,
such as the Pterygotus (Fig. 1, p. 26), attained a length of nearly
six feet. They belonged to the humbler ranks of life, and, if now
living, would without doubt be assigned, by fishmongers ignorant
of natural history, to that vague category of ‘‘shell-fish ” in which
they include crabs, lobsters, mussels, ete.

These lobster-like creatures, though claiming no relationship
with the higher ranks of animals, may well engage our attention,
not only for their great size, but also for their strange build.

There are no living creatures quite like them. Certainly they
are not true lobsters, and yet we may consider them to be first
or second cousins of those ten-footed crustaceans ' of the present

1 Crustaceans are a class of jointed creatures (articulate animals), possess-
ing a hard shell or crust (Lat. crzsta), which they cast periodically. They
all breathe by gills.

‘| ALVIg
*799) 9 yBua'y
*SNANUOL S “sndagghany “SHINSUYD SNZOSHAI T

“SNOIdYOOS-VaAS

on

SEA-SCORPIONS. 25

day—lobsters, crabs, and shrimps, so welcome on the tables of both
rich and poor. Some naturalists say that their nearest relations
at the present day are the king-crabs inhabiting the China seas and
the east coast of North America; and there certainly are some
points of resemblance between them. Others say that they are
related to scorpions, and for this reason we call them Sea-
scorpions, (See Plate I.)

The first feature we notice in these creatures is the way in
which their bodies and limbs are divided into rings or joints.
This fact tells us that they belong to that great division of animals
called “ Articulates,” of which crabs, lobsters, spiders, centipedes,
and insects are examples. The celebrated Linnzeus called them
all insects, because their bodies are in this way cut into divisions.*
But this arrangement has since been abandoned. However, they
are all built upon this simple plan, their bodies being like a series
of rings, to whicKare attached paired appendages or limbs, also
composed of te oe longer and some shorter. Now, there must
be something very fitting and appropriate in this arrangement,
for the creatures that are thus built up are far more numerous
than any other group of animals. They must be particularly well
qualified to fight the battle of life; for like a victorious army
they have taken the world by storm, and still remain in possession.
We find them everywhere—in seas, rivers, and lakes; in fields
and forests; in the soil, and in all sorts of nooks and crannies ;
in the air, and even upon or inside the bodies of other animals.
Some of them, such as ants, bees, and wasps, show an intelligence
that is simply marvellous, and have acquired social habits which
excite our admiration.

Articulate animals are a very ancient race, as well as a flourish-
ing one, for the oldest rocks containing undoubted fossils—namely,
certain slates found in Wales and the Lake District—tell us of a
time when shallow seas swarmed with little articulate animals
known as ¢rilobites. They were in appearance something like

1 Lat. zz, into, and secfa, cut.

26 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

wood-lice of the present day; and the record of the rocks tells
us plainly that creatures built upon this plan have flourished ever
since. We mention this because they are related to the king-
crabs of the present day, and therefore to the huge old-fashioned
sea-scorpions we are now considering.

The best-known and largest of these creatures is represented
in Fig. 1. It has received the name Perygotus (or wing-eared)
from certain fanciful resemblances pointed out by the quarrymen.

Fic. 1.—Pterygotus anglicus. (After Woodward.)

1. Upper side. 2. Under side.

It was first discovered, along with others of its kind, by Hugh
Miller, at Carmylie in Forfarshire, in a certain part of the Old
Red Sandstone (see Table of Strata, Appendix I.) known as the
Arbroath paving-stone. The quarrymen, in the course of their
work, came upon and dug out large pieces of the fossilised remains

SEA-SCORPIONS. 27

of this creature. Its hard coat of jointed armour bore on its surface
curious wavy markings that suggested to their minds the sculptured
feathers on the wings of cherubs—of all subjects of the chisel
the most common. Hence they christened these remains
“Seraphim.” They did not succeed in getting complete specimens
that could be pieced together; and the part to which this fanciful
name was given turned out to be part of the under side below the
mouth. It was composed of several large plates, two of which
are not unlike the wings of a cherub in shape. Hugh Miller says
in his classic work, Zhe Old Red Sandstone—“ the form altogether,
from its wing-like appearance, its feathery markings, and its
angular points, will suggest to the reader the origin of the name
given it by Forfarshire workmen.”

A correct restoration, in proportion to the fragments found in
the Lower Old Red Sandstone, would give a creature measuring
nearly six feet in length, and more than a foot across. Prerygotus
anglicus may therefore be justly considered a monster crustacean.

The illustrious Cuvier, who, in the eighteenth century founded
the science of comparative anatomy (see p. 5), astonished the
scientific world by his bold interpretations of fossil bones. From
a few broken fragments of bone he could restore the skeleton of
an entire animal, and determine its habits and mode of living.
When other wise men were unable to read the writing of Nature
on the walls of her museum—in the shape of fossil bones—he
came forward, like a second Daniel, to interpret the signs, and so
instructed us how to restore the world’s lost creations. Hugh
Miller submitted the fragments found at Balruddery to the
celebrated naturalist Agassiz, a pupil of Cuvier, who had written
a famous work on fossil fishes; and he says that he was much
struck with the skill displayed by him in piecing together the
fragments of the huge Pterygotus. ‘‘ Agassiz glanced over the
collection, One specimen especially caught his attention—an
elegantly symmetrical one. His eye brightened as he contem-
plated it. ‘I will tell you,’ he said, turning to the company—‘ I

28 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

will tell you what these are—the remains of a huge lobster.’ He
arranged the specimens in the group before him with as much
ease as I have seen a young girl arranging the pieces of ivory in
an Indian puzzle. There is a homage due to supereminent genius,
which Nature spontaneously pays when there are no low feelings
of jealousy or envy to interfere with her operations; and the
reader may well believe that it was willingly rendered on this
occasion to the genius of Agassiz.” Agassiz himself, previous to
this, had considered such fragments as he had seen to be the
remains of fishes. As we have said before, this creature was not
a true lobster; but Agassiz, when he expressed the opinion just
quoted, was not far off the mark, and did great service in showing
it to be a crustacean. There were no lobsters or scorpions at
that early period of the world’s history, and this creature, with its
long “ jaw-feet” and powerful tail, was a near approach to a
king-crab on the one hand and scorpion on the other. If living
now, it would no doubt command a high price at Billingsgate ;
but, then, it would be a dangerous thing to handle when alive,
and might be more troublesome to catch than our crabs or
lobsters.

The front part of its body was entirely enveloped in a kind
of shield, called a carapace, bearing near the centre minute
eyes, which probably were useless, and at the corners two large
compound eyes, made up of numerous little lenses, such as we
see in the eye of a dragon-fly. This is clearly proved by certain
well-preserved specimens. ‘There are five pairs of appendages,
all attached under or near the head. Behind the head follow
thirteen rings, or segments, the last of which forms the tail,
two at least of these bore gills for breathing. All but two of
them, below the mouth, must have been beautifully articulated, so
as to allow them to move freely, as we see in the lobster of the
present day. But look at that lowest and largest pair of appendages,
the end joints of which are flattened out, and you will see that
they must have been a powerful oar-like apparatus for swimming

SEA-SCORPIONS. 29

forwards. We can fancy this creature propelling itself much in
the same way as a “ water-beetle”” rows itself through the water
in a pond. In all other crustaceans the antennz are used for
feeling about, but in the Pterygotus they are used as claws for
seizing the prey.

In general external appearance, this huge Pterygotus greatly
reminds us of a tiny fresh-water crustacean, known as Cyclops—
because it has only one eye, like the giant in Homer’s Odyssey.
This little creature, which is only ,, inch in length, is an
inhabitant of ponds. From its large eyes, powerful oar-like
limbs, or appendages, and from the general form of its body, Dr.
Henry Woodward (the author of a learned monograph on these
creatures) concludes that the Pterygotus was a very active
animal; and the reader will easily gather from its pair of
antennz, converted at their extremities into nippers, and from
the nature of its “jaw-feet,” that the creature was a hungry and
predaceous monster, seizing everything eatable that came in its
way. The whole family to which it belongs—including Pterygotus,
Eurypterus, Slimonia, Stylonurus, and others—seems to have been
fitted for rather rapid motion, if we may judge from the long
tapering and well-articulated body. In two forms (Pterygotus and
Slimonia) the tail-flap probably served both as a powerful pro-
peller, and as a rudder for directing the creature’s course ; but
others, such as Eurypterus and Stylonurus, had long sword-like
tails, which may have assisted them to burrow into the sand, in
the same way that king-crabs do. Eurypterus remipes is shown
in Fig. 2.

It has been stated above that our sea-scorpions are related to
the king-crabs. Now, this creature, it is well known, burrows into
the mud and sand at the bottom of the sea. This it does by
shoving its broad sharp-edged head-shield downwards, working
rapidly at the same time with its hinder feet, or appendages, and
by pushing with the long spike that forms a kind of tail. It will
thus sink deeper and deeper until nothing can be seen of its

30 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

body, and only the eyes peep out of the mud. It will crawl and
wander about by night, but remains hidden by day. Some of
them are of large size, and occasionally measure two feet in
length. They possess six pairs of well-formed feet, the joints of
which, near the body, are armed with teeth and spines, and serve

yi

<<g eee

=

ee

Fic. 2.—Silurian merostomata.

1. Stylonurus. 2. Eurypterus. (After Woodward.)

the purpose of jaws, being used to masticate the food and force
it into the mouth, which is situated between them.

Now, this fact is of great importance; for it helps us to
understand the use of the four pairs of “ jaw-feet” in our Sea-

SEA-SCORPIONS. 31

scorpions. What curious animals they must have been, using
the same limbs for walking, holding their prey, and eating!
Look at the broad plates at the base of the oar-like limbs, or
appendages, with their tooth-like edges. These are the plates
found by Hugh Miller’s quarrymen, and compared by them to
the wings of seraphim. You will easily perceive that by a back-
ward and forward movement, they would perform the office of
teeth and jaws, while the long antennz with their nippers—
helped by the other and smaller appendages—held the unfortunate
victim in a relentless grasp. And even these smaller limbs, you
will see from the figure, had their first joints, near the mouth,
provided with toothed edges like a saw.

With regard to the habits of Sea-scorpions, it would not be
altogether safe to conclude that, because in so many ways
they resembled king-crabs, they therefore had the same habit
of burrowing into the soft muddy or sandy bed of the sea, as
some authorities have supposed. Seeing that there is a difference
of opinion on this subject, the author consulted Dr. Woodward on
the question, and he said he thought it unlikely, seeing that, in
some of them, such as the Pterygotus, the eyes are placed on the
margin of the head-shield ; for it would hardly care to rub its
eyes with sand. Whether it chose at times to bury its long body
in the sand by a process of wriggling backwards, as certain
modern crustaceans do, we may consider to be an open question.

If only Sea-scorpions had not unfortunately died out, how
interesting it would be to watch them alive, and to see exactly
what use they would make of their long bodies, tail-flaps, and
tail-spikes! Were they nocturnal in their habits, wandering
about by night, and taking their rest by day? Such questions,
we fear, can never be answered. But their large eyes would have
been able to collect a great deal of light when the moon and stars
feebly illumined the shallower waters of the seas of Old Red
Sandstone times ; and so there is nothing to contradict the idea.

Now, it is an interesting fact that young crabs, soon after they

32 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

are hatched, have long bodies somewhat similar to those of our
Sea-scorpions, with a head-shield under which are their jaw-feet, and
then a number of free body-rings without any appendages. ‘These
end in a spiked tail. As the crab grows older, he ceases to be
a free-swimming animal—for which kind of life his long body
is well suited,—tucks up his long tail, and takes to crawling
instead. Thus his body is rendered more compact and handy
for the life he is going to lead. Lobsters, on the other hand, can
swim gently forwards, or dart rapidly backwards. Thus we see
that the ten-footed crustaceans of the present day are divided into
two groups—the long-tailed and free-swimming forms, such as
lobsters, shrimps, and cray-fishes ; and the short-tailed crawling
forms, namely, the crabs. Now, in the same way, Pterygotus and
its allies were long-tailed forms, while the king-crabs are short-
tailed forms. So were the trilobites of old. Hence we learn
that, ages and ages ago, before the days of crabs and lobsters,
there were long-tailed and short-tailed forms of crustaceans, just
as there are now, only they did not possess true walking legs.
They belonged to quite a different order, called “ thigh-mouthed ”
crustaceans, Merostomata, because their legs are all placed near the
mouth ; and, as we have already learned, were used for feeding
as well as for purposes of locomotion.

Now, one of the many points of interest in Pterygotus and its
allies is that they somewhat resemble the crab in its young or
larval state. To a modern naturalist, this fact is important as
showing that crustacean forms of life have advanced since the
days of the sea-scorpions.

Their resemblance to land-scorpions is so close that, if it were
not for the important fact that scorpions breathe air instead of
water, and for this purpose are provided with air-tubes (or
trachea) such as all insects have, they would certainly be removed
bodily out of the crustacean class, and put into that in which
scorpions and spiders are placed, viz. the Arachnida. But, in
spite of this important difference, there are some naturalists in

SEA-SCORPIONS. 33

favour of such a change. It will thus be seen that our name
Sea-scorpions is quite permissible.

Hugh Miller described some curious little round bodies found
with the remains of the Pterygotus, which it was thought were
the eggs of these creatures !

Finally, these extinct crustaceans flourished in those ages of
the world’s history known as the Silurian and the Old Red Sand-
stone periods. As far as we know, they did not survive beyond
the succeeding period, known as the Carboniferous.'

1 The student should consult Dr. Henry Woodward’s valuable AZonograph
of the British Merostomata (Paleontographical Society), to which the writer is
much indebted. With regard to the representation of Prerygotus anglicus in
Plate I., it has been pointed out by Dr. Woodward that the creature was
unable to bend its body into such a position as is shown there. As in a
modern lobster, or shrimp, there were certain overlapping plates in the rings,
or segments, of the body, which prevented movement from side to side, and

only allowed of a vertical movement.

CHAPTER Ti
THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS.

** Berossus, the Chaldzean saith: A time was when the universe was dark-
ness and water, wherein certain animals of frightful and compound forms were
generated. There were serpents and other creatures with the mixed shapes of
one another, of which pictures are kept in the temple of Belus at Babylon.” —
Lhe Archaic Genesis.

Vistrors to Sydenham, who have wandered about the spacious
gardens so skilfully laid out by the late Sir Joseph Paxton, will
be familiar with the great models of extinct animals on the
“geological island.” These were designed and executed by that
clever artist, Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, who made praiseworthy
efforts to picture to our eyes some of the world’s lost creations, as
restored by the genius of Sir Richard Owen and other famous
naturalists. His drawings of extinct animals may yet be seen
hanging on the walls of some of our provincial museums ; and
doubtless others still linger among the natural history collections
of schools and colleges.

Lazily basking in the sun, when it condescends to shine, and
resting his clumsy carcase on the ground that forms the shore
near the said geological island at Sydenham, may be seen the old
fish-lizard, or Ichthyosaurus, that forms the subject of the present
chapter. He looks awkward on land, as if longing to get into his
native element once more, and cleave its waters with his power-
ful tail-fin. His “flippers” seem too weak to enable him to crawl
on land. Moreover, the most recent discoveries of Dr. Fraas

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 35

lead us to conclude that the Ichthyosaur never ventured to leave
the ‘briny ocean” to bask upon the land.

This great uncouth beast presents some curious anomalies in
his constitution, being planned on different lines to anything now
living, and presenting, as so many other extinct animals do, a
mixture, or fusion, of types that greatly puzzled the learned men
of the time when his remains were first brought to light, after
their long entombment in the Lias rocks forming the cliffs on the
coast of Dorset. Some have christened him a “‘sea-dragon,” and
such indeed he may be considered. But the name Ichthyosaurus,
given above, has received the sanction of high authority, and,
moreover, serves to remind us of the fact that, although in many
respects a lizard, he yet retains in his bony framework the traces
of a remote fishy ancestry. So we will call him a fish-lizard.

We remember in our young days the amiable endeavours of
Mr. ‘Peter Parley” to introduce us to the wonders of creation ;
and his account of the Ichthyosaurus particularly impressed itself
on our youthful imagination. How surprised that inestimable
instructor of youth would be could he now see the still more
wonderful remains that have been brought to light from Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America !

The curious quotation given at the head of the present chapter
refers to a widespread belief, prevalent among the highly civilised
nations of antiquity, that the world was once inhabited by
dragons, or other monsters “of mixed shape” and characters.
To the student of ancient history traces of this curious belief
will be familiar. Sir Charles Lyell refers to such a belief
when he says, in his Principles of Geology, “‘The Egyptians, it
is true, had taught, and the Stoics had repeated, that the earth
had once given birth to some monstrous animals that existed
no longer.” It may be surprising to some, but it is undoubtedly
the fact, that modern scientific truths were partly anticipated
by the civilised nations of long ago. ‘Take the ideas cf
the ancients as interpreted from the records of Egypt, Chaldza,

36 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

India, and China; and you will find that our discoveries in
geology, astronomy, and ethnology go far to prove that the
traditions of these ancient peoples, however derived, after making
due allowance for Oriental allegory and poetic hyperbole, are not
far from the truth. To the Babylonian tradition of the monstrous
forms of life at first created we have already alluded; but in other
fields of discovery we find the same foreshadowing of discoveries
made in our own day. Take the vast cycles of Egyptian tradition,
wherein the stars returned to their places after a circle of constant
change, only to start again on their unwearied round; the atomic
theory of Lucretius, now expanded and incorporated into modern
chemistry; or the philosopher’s pregnant saying—Ommne vivum
ex ovo (‘‘ Every living thing comes from an egg”). These and other
examples might be cited to show how true the old saying is,
“There is nothing new under the sun.” In the writings of ancient
authors may be found singular notices of bones and skeletons
found in ‘‘the bowels of the earth,” which are referred to an
imaginary era of long ago, when giants of huge dimensions walked
this earth. One is inclined sometimes to wonder whether the old
fables of griffins and horrid dragons may not be to some extent
based upon the occasional discovery, in former times, of fossil
bones, such as evidently belonged to animals the like of which
are not to be seen nowadays. (See chaps. xiii. and xiv.)

The illustrious Cuvier, in his day, considered the fish-lizard to be
one of the most heteroclite and monstrous animals ever discovered.
He said of this creature that it possessed the snout of a dolphin,
the teeth of a crocodile, the head and breast-bone of a lizard, the
paddles of a whale or dolphin, and the vertebree of a fish! No
wonder that naturalists and palzontologists, whose realm is the
natural history of the past, were obliged to make a new division,
or order, of reptiles to accommodate the fish-lizard. It is obvious
that a creature with such very ‘‘ mixed” relationships would be
out of place in any of the four orders into which living reptiles,
as represented by turtles, snakes, lizards, and crocodiles are

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 37

divided. Here is what Professor Blackie says of the Ichthyo-
saurus—
‘Behold, a strange monster our wonder engages !
If dolphin or lizard your wit may defy.
Some thirty feet long, on the shore of Lyme-Regis,
With a saw for a jaw, and a big staring eye.
A fish or a lizard? An ichthyosaurus,
With a big goggle eye, and a very small brain,
And paddles like mill-wheels in chattering chorus,
Smiting tremendous the dread-sounding main.”

A glance at our restoration, Plate II., will show that the fish-
_ lizard was a powerful monster, well endowed with the means of
% propelling itself rapidly through the water as it sought its living
prey, to seize it within those cruel jaws. The long and
powerful tail was its chief organ of propulsion; but the paddles
would also be useful for this purpose, as well as for guiding its
course. The pointed head and generally tapering body suggests
a capability of rapid movement through the water ; and since we
know for certain that it fed on fishes, this conclusion is con-
firmed, for fishes are not easily caught now, and most probably
were not easily caught ages ago.

The personal history of the fish-lizard, merely as a fossil or
“remain,” is interesting; so much so, that we may perhaps be
allowed to relate the circumstances of his début before the
scientific world, in the days of the ever-illustrious Cuvier, to
whom we have already alluded. But England had its share of
illustrious men, too, though lesser lights compared to the founder
of comparative anatomy,—such as Sir Richard Owen, on whom
the mantle of his friend Cuvier has fallen; Conybeare, De la
Beche, and Dean Buckland.

These scientific men, aided by the untiring labours of many
enthusiastic collectors of organic remains, have been the means
of solving the riddle of the fish-lizard, and of introducing him to
the public. By this time there is, perhaps, no creature among
the host of Antediluvian types better known than this reptile.

38 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

The remains of fish-lizards have attracted the attention of
collectors and describers of fossils for nearly two centuries past.
The vertebree, or “cup-bones,” as they are often called, of which
the spinal column was composed, were figured by Scheiichzer,
in an old work entitled Querele Piscium ; and, at that time,
they were supposed to be the vertebre of fishes. In the
year 1814 Sir Everard Home described the fossil remains of
this creature, in a paper read before the Royal Society, and
published in their Pxilosophical Transactions. This fossil was
first discovered in the Lias strata of the Dorsetshire coast. Other
papers followed till the year 1820. We are chiefly indebted to
De la Beche and Conybeare for pointing out and illustrating the
nature of the fish-lizard ; and that at a time when the materials
for so doing were far more scanty than they are now. Mr. Charles
Konig, Mr. Thomas Hawkins, Dean Buckland, Sir Philip Egerton,
and Professor Owen have all helped to throw light on the structure
and habits of these old tyrants of the seas of that age, which is
known as the Jurassic period. They lived on, however, to the
succeeding or Cretaceous period, during which our English chalk
was forming; but the Liassic age was the one in which they
flourished most abundantly, and developed the greatest variety.

In the year 1814 a few bones were found on the Dorsetshire
coast between Charmouth and Lyme-Regis, and added to the
collection of Bullock. They came from the Lias cliffs, under-
mined by the encroaching sea. Sir Everard’s attention being
attracted to them, he published the notices already referred to.
The analogy of some of the bones to those of a crocodile, induced
Mr. Konig, of the British Museum, to believe the animal to have
been a saurian, or lizard ; but the vertebre, and also the position
of certain openings in the skull, indicated some remote affinity
with fishes, but this must not be pressed too far. The choice
of a name, therefore, involved much difficulty ; and at length
he decided to call it the Jchthyosaurus, or fish-lizard. Mr.
Johnson, of Bristol, who had collected for many years in that

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 39

neighbourhood, found out some valuable particulars about these
remains. The conclusions of Dean Buckland, then Professor of
Geology at Oxford, led Sir Everard to abandon many of his
former conclusions, The labours of the learned men of the
day were greatly assisted by the exertions of Miss Anning, an
enthusiastic collector of fossils. ‘This lady, devoting herself to
science, explored the frowning and precipitous cliffs in the
neighbourhood of Lyme-Regis, when the furious spring-tide
combined with the tempest to overthrow them, and rescued from
destruction by the sea, sometimes at the peril of her life, the few
specimens which originated all the facts and speculations of
those persons whose names will ever be remembered with
gratitude by geologists.

Probably our readers are already more or less familiar with the
drawings of the fossilised remains of Ichthyosauri to be seen in
almost every text-book of geology. (Fig. 3 is from Owen’s British
fossil Reptiles.) But we recommend all who take an interest in the

Fic. 3.—/chthyosaurus intermedius.

world’s lost creations to pay a visit to the great Natural History
Museum, at South Kensington. The fossil reptile gallery contains
a magnificent series of Ichthyosauri, about thirty in number. Of
these a large number were obtained through the exertions of the
late Mr. T. Hawkins, a Somersetshire gentleman, who was a most
ardent collector of fossil reptiles, and who devoted himself with
great enthusiasm and unsparing energy to the acquisition of a

40 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

truly splendid collection of these most interesting relics of the
past. Nearly sixty years ago he arranged for the purchase of his
treasures by the authorities of the British Museum, and thus
his collection became the property of the nation.

His specimens were figured and described by him in two large
folio volumes. The first was published in 1834, under the title,
Memoirs of the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri; his second,
with the same plates, in 1842, under the quaint title of Zhe
Book of the Great Sea-Dragons. The large lithographic draw-
ings of his fine specimens were beautifully executed by Scharf and
O’Neil. The plates are the only really valuable part of these two
curious and ill-written books. His descriptions are not of much
value, and his pages are encumbered with a vast amount of
extraneous matter. The author is immensely proud of his
collection, and his vanity is conspicuous throughout. Instead of
confining himself to descriptions of what he found, and how he
found them, he continually wanders into all sorts of subjects that
are, to say the least, irrelevant. In one place he introduces
ancient history and mythology; in another, Old Testament
chronology; in another, the unbelieving spirit of the age; and
here and there indulges in vague unphilosophical speculations.
Altogether his two volumes are a curious mixture of bigotry,
conceit, and unrestrained fancy, and they afforded to the present
writer no small amusement. One rises from the perusal of such
men’s writings with a strong sense of the contrast between the
humble and patient spirit in which our great men of to-day, such
as Professor Owen, study nature and record their observations, and
the vague, conceited outpourings of some old-fashioned writers.

Mr. Hawkins tells us that his youthful attention was directed
to the Lias quarries, near Edgarly, in Somersetshire, in conse-
quence of some strange reports. It was said that the bones of
giants and infants had, at distant intervals, been found in them.
These quarries he visited, and, by offers of generous payment,
induced the workmen to keep for him all the remains they might

‘sotoads sza|[euls VW
“SIAJSOAINUI] SNANDSONY JY IT

Lith

‘O39 ‘snipagucy ‘saysiy

“SAGUVZIT-HSIA

*jaaj te ynoqe yiBua'yT
*“SIUNIUUMLOD SHANDSONYZYIT

I] ALvig

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 41

find. In this way he finally obtained the co-operation of all the
quarrymen in the county.

Mr. Hawkins thus expresses his delight on obtaining an
Ichthyosaurus which was pointed out to him by Miss Anning,
near the church at Lyme-Regis, in the year 1832: “ Who can
describe my transport at the sight of the colossus? My eyes the
first which beheld it! Who shall ever see them lit up with the
same unmitigated enthusiasm again? And I verily believe that
the uncultivated bosoms of the working men were seized with the
same contagious feeling; for they and the surrounding spectators
waved their hats to an ‘ Hurra!’ that made hill and mossy dell
echoing ring.”

This specimen, however, got sadly broken in its fall from the
cliff; but in time he put all the pieces together again. Speaking
of his own collection, he says, “‘ This stupendous treasure was
gathered by me from every part of England; arranged, and its
multifarious features elaborated from the hard limestone by my
own hands. A tyro in collecting at the age of twelve years, I
then boasted of all the antiquities that were come-at-able in my
neighbourhood, but, finding that everybody beat my cabinet of
coins, I addressed myself to worm-eaten books, and last to
fossils.” Before he was twenty years of age he had obtained a
very fine collection of organic remains.

When, however, he complains of the Philistine dulness and
stupidity of quarrymen, who often, in their ignorance, break up
finds of almost priceless value, we can fully sympathize.

In general contour the body of the fish-lizard was long and
tapering, like that of a whale (see Plate II.). It probably showed
no distinct neck. The long tail was its chief organ of propulsion.
We notice two pairs of fins, or paddles ; one on the fore part of
the body, the other on the hinder part, like the pectoral and
abdominal fins of a fish. The skin was scaleless and smooth, or
slightly wrinkled, like that of a whale. No traces of scales have
ever been found ; and if such had existed, they would certainly

42 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

have been preserved, since those of fishes and crocodiles of
the Jurassic period have been found in considerable number
and variety. It is therefore safe to conclude that such were
absent in this case. In the Lias strata, at least, the specimens
are often preserved with most wonderful completeness (see
p- 47).

The long and pointed jaws are a striking feature of these
animals. The eyes were very large and powerful, and specially
adapted, as we shall see presently, to the conditions of their life.

It might, perhaps, be asked whether the fish-lizards breathed,
like fishes, by means of gills. That question can easily be
answered ; for if they had possessed gills for taking in water and
breathing the air dissolved therein, they would reveal the fact by
showing a bony framework for the support of gills, such as are to
be found in all fishes. These structures, known as “ branchial
arches,” are absent ; therefore the fish-lizards possessed lungs, and
breathed air like reptiles of the present day. Their skulls show
where the nostrils were situated ; namely, near the eyes, and not
at the end of the upper jaw-bone. There are also passages in the
skull leading from the nostrils to the palate, along which currents
of air passed on their way to the lungs. Being air-breathers, they
would be compelled occasionally to seek the surface of the sea, in
order to obtain a fresh supply of the life-giving element—oxygen ;
but, being cold-blooded and with a small brain, needing a much
less supply of oxygen for its work, the fish-lizards had, like fishes,
this advantage over whales, which are warm-blooded—that their
stern-propeller, or tail-fin, could take the form best adapted for a
swift, straight-forward course through the water.

In the whale tribe the tail-fin is horizontal; and this is so on
account of their need, as large-brained, warm-blooded _air-
breathers, of speedy access to the atmospheric air. Were it other-
wise, they would not have the means of rising with sufficient
rapidity to the surface of the sea; for they have only one pair of
fins. But the fish-lizards had two pairs of these appendages,

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS, 43

and the hinder or pelvic pair no doubt were of great service
in helping the creatures to come up to the surface when
necessary.

Thus we see that the whale, with its one pair of paddles, has a tail
specially planned with a view to rapid vertical movement through
the water ; while in the fish-lizards, who did not require to breathe
so frequently, the tail-fin was planned with a view to swift and
straight movement forward as they pursued their prey, and they
were compensated by having bestowed upon them an extra pair

Fic. 4.—(A) Lateral and (B) profile views of a tooth of Jchthyosaurus
platyodon (Conybeare), Lower Lias, Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire. (c) Tooth of
Ichihyosaurus coumunis (Conybeare), Lower Lias, Lyme Regis, Dorset.

of paddles. Thus we learn how one part of an animal is related
to and dependent upon another, and how they all work together
with the greatest harmony for certain definite purposes (see
p: 6):

These great marine predaceous reptiles literally swarmed in
the seas of the Lias period, and no doubt devoured immense

44 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

shoals of the fishes of those times, whose numbers were thus
to some extent kept down. There is clear proof of this in the
fossilised droppings—known as “coprolites,’—which show on
examination the broken and comminuted remains of the little
bony plates of ganoid fishes that we know were contemporaries
of these reptiles. Probably young ones were sometimes devoured
too.

It was in the period of the Lias that fish-lizards attained to their
greatest development, both in numbers and variety ; and the
strata of that period have preserved some interesting variations.
It will be sufficient here to point out two, namely, Ichthyosaurus
tenuirostris—an elegant little form, in which the jaws, instead of
being massive and strong, were long and slender like a bird’s
beak ; and also Ichthyosaurus latifrons (Fig. 5), with jaws still more

Fic. 5.—Skull of Lcehthyosaurus latifrons.

birdlike. Our artist has attempted to show the former variety in
our illustration (Plate II.). A most perfect example of this pretty
little Ichthyosaur, from the Lower Lias of Street in Somerset,
has recently been presented to the National Collection at South
Kensington by Mr. Alfred Gillett, of Street, and may be seen
there. In this group of fish-lizards the eyes are relatively larger,
and we should imagine that they were very quick in detecting
and catching their prey ; their paddles also have larger bones.
There is a remarkably fine specimen at Burlington House, in
the rooms of the Geological Society, of an Ichthyosaurus’ head,
which the writer found, on measuring, to be about five feet six
inches long. A cast of this head is exhibited at South Kensington.
The largest of the specimens in the National Collection is twenty-
two feet long and eight feet across the expanded paddles ; but it

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 45

is known that many attained much greater dimensions. Judging
from detached heads and parts of skeletons, it is probable that
some of them were between thirty and forty feet long. A
specimen of Ichthyosaurus platyodon in the collection of the
late Mr. Johnson, of Bristol, has an eye-cavity with a diameter
of fourteen inches. This collection is now dispersed.

With regard to their habits, Sir Richard Owen concludes that
they occasionally sought the shores, crawled on the strand, and
basked in the sunshine. His reason for this conjecture (which,
however, is not confirmed by Dr. Fraas’s recent discoveries) is to
be found in the bony structure connected with the fore-paddles,
which is not to be found in any porpoise, dolphin, grampus, or
whale, and for want of which these creatures are so helpless when
left high and dry on the shore. The structure in question is a
strong bony arch, inverted and spanning across beneath the chest
from one shoulder to the other. A fish-lizard, when so visiting
the shore for sleep, or in the breeding season, would lie or crawl,
prostrate, with its under side resting or dragging on the ground—
somewhat after the manner of a turtle.

It is a curious fact that this bony arch resembles the same part
in those singular and problematical mammals, the Echidna and
the Platypus, or duck-mole.

The enormous magnitude and peculiar construction of the eye
are highly interesting features. ‘The expanded pupil must have
allowed of the admittance of a large quantity of light, so that the
creature possessed great powers of vision.

The organic remains associated with fish-lizards tell us that
they inhabited waters of moderate depth, such as prevails near a
coast-line or among coral islands. Moreover, an air-breathing
creature would obviously be unable to live in ‘‘the depths of the

1 It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remark that whales are not fishes, but
mammals which have undergone great change in order to adapt themselves
to a marine life. Their hind limbs have practically vanished, only a rudiment
of them being left.

46 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

sea ;” for it would take a long time to get to the surface fora
fresh supply of air.

Perhaps no part of the skeleton is more interesting than the
curious circular series of bony plates surrounding the iris and pupil
of the eye. The eyes of many fishes are defended by a bony
covering consisting of two pieces ; but a circle of bony overlapping
plates is now only found in the eyes of turtles, tortoises, lizards, and
birds, and some alligators. ‘This elaborate apparatus must have
been of some special use; the question is—What service or
services did it perform? Here, again, we find answers suggested
by Owen and Buckland. It would aid, they say, in protecting the
eye-ball from the waves of the sea when the creature rose to the
surface, as well as from the pressure of the water when it dived
down to the bottom—for even at a slight depth pressure in-
creases, as divers know. But it appears that the ring of bony
plates fulfilled a yet more important office, thereby enabling
the fish-lizards to play admirably their part in the world in which
they lived, and to succeed in the struggle of life; for even in
those remote days there must have been, as now, a keen competi-
tion among all animals, so that the victory was to those that were
best equipped.

Would it not be an advantage for them to have the power of
seeing their finny prey whether near or far? Certainly it would ;
and so we are told that, by bringing the plates a little nearer
together, and causing them to press gently on the eye-ball, so as
to make the eye more convex—that is, bulging out—a nearer
object would be the better discerned. On the other hand, by
relaxing this pressure, thus enlarging the aperture of the pupil
and diminishing the convexity, a distant object would be focussed
upon the retina. In this manner some birds alter the focus of
their eyes while swooping down on their prey.

What a wonderful arrangement! We often hear of people having
two pairs of spectacles—with lenses of different curvature—one
for reading, and the other for seeing more distant objects than a

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 47

book held in the hand. But here is a creature that possessed an
apparatus far more simple and effective than that supplied by
the optician! Dr. Buckland, speaking of these “sclerotic plates,”
as they are called, says they show “that the enormous eye of
which they formed the front was an optical instrument of varied
and prodigious power, enabling the Ichthyosaurus to descry its prey
in the obscurity of night and in the depths of the sea.” But the
last expression must be taken in a limited sense (see Fig. 6).

Fic. 6.—Head of /chthyosaurus platyodon.

It might well be supposed that no record had been preserved
from which we could learn anything about the nature of the skin
of our fish-lizard ; but even this wish has been partly fulfilled, to
the delight of all geologists. Certain specimens have been
obtained, from the Lias of England and Germany, that show
faithful impressions of the skin that covered the paddles. A
specimen of this nature has lately been presented to the national
treasure-house at South Kensington by Mr. Montague Brown.
On the inner side of the paddle was a broad fin-like expan-
sion, admirably adapted to obtain the full advantage of the stroke
of the limb in swimming.’

Speaking of the limbs, it should be mentioned that the bones
of each finger, instead of being elongated and limited in number
to three in each of the five fingers, are polygonal in shape and

* Mr. Smith Woodward informs the writer that specimens have lately been
found near Wiirtemberg, with evidence of a triangular fin on the back. Plate
II. has been redrawn for this edition, to make it more in harmony with Dr.
Fraas’s discoveries. (See Appendix V.)

48 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

arranged in as many as seven or eight rows, while those of each
finger are exceedingly numerous. Thus the whole structure
forms a kind of bony pavement which must have been very
supple. Such a limb would be one of the most efficient and
powerful swimming organs known in the whole animal kingdom.
In whales the fingers of the flippers are of the usual number,
namely, five. Some species of fish-lizards had as many as over
a hundred separate little bones in the fore-paddle.

Another question naturally suggests itself: Were they viviparous,
or did they lay eggs like crocodiles? This question seems to
have been answered in favour of the first supposition ; and in the
following interesting manner. It not infrequently happens that
entire little skeletons of very small individuals are found under
the ribs of large ones. They are invariably uninjured, and of
the same species as the one that encloses them, and with the
head pointing in one direction. Such specimens are most
probably the fossilised remains of little fish-lizards, that were yet
unborn when their mothers met with an untimely end (see p. 51).
In some cases, however, they may be young ones that were
swallowed. (See Appendix V.)

The jaws of these hungry formidable monsters were provided
with a series of formidable teeth—sometimes over two hundred
in number—inserted in a long groove, and not in distinct sockets,
as in the case of crocodiles. In some cases, sixty or more have
been found on each side of the upper and lower jaws, giving a
total of over two hundred and forty teeth! The larger teeth may
be two inches or more in length.

The jaws were admirably constructed on a plan that combined
lightness, elasticity, and strength. Instead of consisting of one
piece only, they show a union of plates of bone, as in recent
crocodiles. ‘These plates are strongest and most numerous just
where the greatest strength was wanted, and thinner and fewer
towards the extremities of the jaw. A crocodile, Sir Samuel
Baker says, in his Wild Beasts and their Ways, can bite a man in

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 49

two; and no doubt our fish-lizard would have been glad to
perform the same feat! But in his pre-Adamite days the oppor-
tunity did not present itself.

The spinal column, or backbone, with its generally concave
vertebrae, must have been highly flexible, as is that of a fish,
especially the long tail which the creature worked rapidly from
side to side as it lashed the waters.

The hollows of these concave vertebrae must have been
originally filled up with fluid forming an elastic bag, or capsule.
To get a clearer idea of this, take a small portion of the back-
bone of a boiled cod, or other “bony” fish, and you will
see on pulling it to pieces, the white, jelly-like substance that
fills up the hollows between the vertebree. In this way Nature
provides a soft cushion between the joints, that allows of
a certain amount of movement, while, at the same time, the
column holds together. The backbone of a fish may not
inaptly be compared to a railway train. Each of the carriages
represents a vertebra, and the buffers act as cushions when the
train is bent in running round a curve. After all, we must
learn from Nature; and many of the greatest mechanical and
engineering triumphs of to-day are based upon the methods
used by Nature in the building up and equipment of vegetable
and animal forms of life.

It may, perhaps, be inquired whether there is any evidence for
the existence of a tail-fin, such as is shown in our illustration.
To this it may be replied that the presence of such an appendage
is as good as proved by a certain flattening of the vertebrez
at the end of the tail, detected by Owen. The direction of
this flattening is from side to side, and therefore the tail-fin
must have been vertical, like that of a fish. In one specimen
Sir Richard Owen has detected as many as 156 vertebre to
the whole body.

Our description of the fish-lizard has, we trust, been sufficient—

E

50 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

although not couched in the language used by men of science—to
give a fair idea of its structure and habits.

In conclusion, a few words may be said about the ancestry and
life-history of these ancient monsters. Paleontologists have good
reason to believe that they were descended from some early form
of land reptile. If so, they show that whales are not the first land
animals that have gone back to the sea, from which so many
forms of life have taken their rise.

During the long Mesozoic period fish-lizards played the part
that whales now play in the economy of the world; and they
resembled the latter, not only in general shape, but in the situation
of the nostrils (near the eye), and in their teeth and long jaws.
But these curious resemblances must not be interpreted to mean
that whales and fish-lizards are related to each other. They only
show that similar modes of life tend to produce artificial re-
semblances—just as some whales, in their turn, show a superficial
resemblance to fishes.

With regard to the particular form of reptile from which the
fish-lizard may have been derived, no certain conclusion has at
present been arrived at. ‘This is chiefly from want of fuller
knowledge of early forms, such as may have existed in the previous
periods known as the Carboniferous and Trias (see Appendix I.).
But there are certain features in the skulls, teeth, and vertebrz
that suggest a relationship with the Labyrinthodonts, or primeval
salamanders that flourished during the above periods, or at least
from amphibians more or less closely allied to them. They can-
not by any possibility be regarded as modified fishes ; for fishes
have gills instead of lungs.

The fish-lizards played their part, and played it admirably ; but
their days were numbered, and the place they occupied has since
been taken by a higher type—the mammal. As reptiles, they
were eminently a success ; but, then, they were only reptiles, and
therefore were at last left behind in the struggle for existence,
until finally they died out, at the end of the Cretaceous period,

THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 51

when certain important geographical and other changes took
place, helping to cause the extinction of many other strange forms
of life, as we shall see later on (see p. 147).

They had a wide geographical range; for their remains have
been discovered in Arctic regions, in Europe, India, Ceram,
North America, the east coast of Africa, Australia, and New
Zealand.

In American deposits they are represented by certain toothless
forms, to which the name Sauranodon (‘toothless lizard”) has
been given. These have been discovered by Professor Marsh, in
the Jurassic strata of the Rocky Mountains. They were eight or
nine feet long, and in every other respect resembled Ichthyosaurs.
As we have endeavoured to indicate in our illustration, the fish-
lizards flourished in seas wherein animal, and doubtless vegetable
life was very abundant. Any one who has collected fossils from
the Lias of England will have found how full it is of beautiful
organic remains, such as corals, mollusca, encrinites, sea-urchins,
and other echinoids, fishes, etc.

The climate of this period in Europe was mild and genial, or
even semi-tropical. Coral reefs and coral islands varied the
landscape. There is just one more point of interest that ought
not to be omitted ; it refers to the manner in which these reptiles
of the Lias age met their deaths, and were thus buried up in
their rocky tombs. Sir Charles Lyell and other writers point out
that the individuals found in those strata must have met with
a sudden death and quick burial; for if their uncovered bodies
had been left, even for a few hours, exposed to putrification
and the attacks of fishes at the bottom of the sea, we should
not now find their remains so completely preserved that often
scarcely a single bone has been moved from its right place.
What was the exact nature of this operation is at present a
matter of doubt.

CHAPTER AV;
THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES.

‘“‘The wonders of geology exercise every faculty of the mind—reason,
memory, imagination ; and though we cannot put our fossils to the question,
it is something to be so aroused as to be made to put the questions to one’s
self.” —HuGH MILLER.

Tuk fish-lizards, described in our last chapter, were not the only
predaceous monsters that haunted the seas of the great Mesozoic
age, or era. We must now say a few words about certain con-
temporary creatures that shared with them the spoils of those
old seas, so teeming with life. And first among these—as being
more fully known—come the long-necked sea-lizards, or Plesio-
saurs.

The Plesiosaurus was first discovered in the Lias rocks of
Lyme-Regis, in the year 1821. It was christened by the above
name, and introduced to the scientific world by the Rev. Mr.
Conybeare (afterwards Dean of Llandaff) and Mr. (afterwards
Sir Henry) de la Beche. They gave it this name in order to
distinguish it from the Ichthyosaurus, and to record the fact that
it was more nearly allied to the lizard than the latter.* Cony-
beare, with the assistance of De la Beche, first described it in
a now-classic paper read before the Geological Society of
London, and published in the Zvansactions of that Society in
the year 1821. In a later paper (1824) he gave a restoration

1 The name is derived from two Greek words—/eszos, near, or allied to,
and sauros, a lizard,

THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 53

of the entire skeleton of Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus; and the
accuracy of that restoration is still universally acknowledged.
This fine specimen was in the possession of the Duke of
Buckingham, who kindly placed it at the disposal of Dr.
Buckland, for a time, that it might be properly described and
investigated.

A glance at our illustration, Plate ITI., will show that this strange
creature was not inaptly compared at the time to a snake
threaded through the body of a turtle.

Dr. Buckland truly observes that the discovery of this genus
forms one of the most important additions that geology has made
to comparative anatomy. ‘It is of the Plesiosaurus,” says that
graphic author, in his 4ridgewater Treatise, ‘that Cuvier asserts
the structure to have been the most heteroclite, and its characters
altogether the most monstrous that have been yet found amid the
ruins of a former world. To the head of a lizard it united the
teeth of a crocodile; a neck of enormous length, resembling
the body of a serpent; a trunk and tail having the proportions of
an ordinary quadruped ; the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles
of a whale! Such are the strange combinations of form and
structure in the Plesiosaurus—a genus, the remains of which, after
interment for thousands of years amidst the wreck of millions of
extinct inhabitants of the ancient earth, are at length recalled to
light by the researches of the geologist, and submitted to our
examination in nearly as perfect a state as the bones of species
that are now existing upon the earth.”

Perhaps the best way in which we can gain a clear idea of the
general characters of a long-necked sea-lizard, as we may call our
Plesiosaurus, is by comparing it with the fish-lizard, described in
the last chapter. Its long neck and small head are the most
conspicuous features. Then we notice the short tail. But if we
compare the paddles of these two extinct forms of life, we notice
at once certain important differences. In the fish-lizard the bone
of the arm was very short, while all the bones of the fore-arm

54 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

and fingers were modified into little many-sided bodies, and so
articulated together as to make the whole limb, or paddle, a solid
yet flexible structure. In the long-necked sea-lizard, however, we
find a long arm-bone with a club-like shape; and the two bones
of the fore-arm are seen to be longer than in the fish-lizard. But
a still greater difference shows itself in the bones of the finger, as
we look at a fossilised skeleton (or a drawing of one); for the
fingers are long and slender, like those of ordinary reptiles.

There are only five fingers, and each finger is quite distinct from
the others. This is the reason why the Plesiosaur was considered
to depart less from the type of an ordinary reptile, and so re-
ceived its name. Other remarkable differences present themselves
in the shoulders and haunches, but these need not be considered
here. The species shown in Fig. 8 had rather a large head.
It is obvious that such a long slender neck as these creatures
had could not have supported a large head, like that of the fish-
lizard. Consequently, we find a striking contrast in the skulls of
the two forms. That of the Plesiosaur was short and stout, and
therefore such as could easily be supported, as well as rapidly
moved about by the long slender neck. ‘Thus we find another
simple illustration of the “law of correlation,” alluded to on
p. 6. The teeth were set in distinct sockets, as they are in
crocodiles, to which animals there are also points of resemblance,
in the backbone, ribs, and skull. Fig. 7 shows three different
types of lower jaws of Plesiosaurs. The one marked C belongs
to Plesiosaurus dolichodirus, the species represented in our plate.
There were no bony plates in the eye. Professor Owen thinks
that they were long-lived. The skin was probably smooth, like
that of a porpoise.

The visitor to the geological collection at South Kensington
will find a splendid series of the fossilised remains of long-necked
sea-lizards. They were mostly obtained from the Lias formation
of Street in Somersetshire, Lyme-Regis in Dorset, and Whitby
in Yorkshire. Those from the Lias are mostly small, about eight

‘yaa zz YISuaY] = *swzczapoyrjop snanvsoisag ‘TIT FLV1g
“ALINNATAL YO HSIA-ATLLAS “GUVZIT-V4AS GAMOAN-ONOT *“STALOVOOUALd

THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 55

to ten feet in length. But in the rocks of the Cretaceous period,
which was later, are found larger specimens. ‘There is a cast of a
very fine specimen from the Upper Lias on the wall of the east
corridor (No. 3 on Plan) of the geological galleries at South

Fic. 7.—Mandibles of Fish-lizards. a, Peloneustes philarchus (Seeley) ;
from the Oxford Clay. 8B, Thaumatosaurus indicus (Lydekker); Upper
Jurassic of India. c, Plestosaurus dolichodirus (Conybeare) ; from the
Lower Lias, Lyme Regis.

Kensington, which is twenty-two feet long. But some of the
Cretaceous forms, both in Europe and America, attained a length
of forty feet, and had vertebre six inches in diameter. The
bodies of the vertebrze, or “ cup-bones,” are either flat or slightly

56 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

concave, showing that the backbone as a whole was less flexible
than in the fish-lizards.

It may be mentioned here that Mr. Smith Woodward, of the
Natural History Museum, recently showed the writer a fossil
Plesiosaur that is being set up in the formatore’s shop, in the same
manner that a recent skeleton might be. In this, and many

Fic. 8.—Plestosaurus macrocephalus.

other ways, the guardians of the national treasure-house are
endeavouring to make the collection intelligible and interest-
ing to the general public. Specimens of extinct animals thus
set up, give one a much better idea than when the bones are all
lying huddled together on a slab of rock. But it is not always
possible to get the bones entirely out of their rocky bed, or matrix.

THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 37

Great credit is due to Mr. Alfred N. Leeds, of Eyebury, who has
disinterred the separate bones of many distinct skeletons of
Plesiosaurs from Oxford Clay strata near Peterborough.

It will be remembered that the long and powerful tail of the
fish-lizard was its principal organ of propulsion through the
water; and that, consequently, the paddles only played a
secondary part. They were small, but amply large enough for
the work they had to perform. But our long-necked sea-lizards
possessed very short tails. What, then, was the consequence ?
Obviously that the paddles had all the more work to do. They
were the chief swimming organs. The vertebree of this short tail
show that it probably was highly flexible, and could move rapidly
from side to side; but, for all that, its use as a propeller would
not be of much importance. We see now why the paddles are
so long and powerful, like two pairs of great oars, one pair on
each side of the body. In a fossil skeleton you will notice the
flattened shape of the arm-bone (or humerus), and of the thigh-
bone (or femur). This gave breadth to the paddles, and made
them more efficient as swimming organs. They give no indica-
tion of having carried even such impertect claws as those of
turtles and seals, and therefore we may conclude that the Plesio-
saur was far more at home in the water than on land, and it
seems probable that progression on land was impossible.

The tail was probably useful as a rudder, to steer the animal
when swimming on the surface, and to elevate or depress it in
ascending and descending through the water. Like the fish-
lizard, this creature was an air-breather, and therefore was obliged
occasionally to visit the surface for fresh supplies of air. But
probably it possessed the power ot compressing air within its
lungs, so that the frequency of its visits to the surface would not
be very great.

From the long neck and head, situated so far away from the
paddles, as well as for other reasons, it may be concluded that
this creature was a rapid swimmer, as was the Ichthyosaurus.

58 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Although of considerable size, it probably had to seek its food, as
well as its safety, chiefly by artifice and concealment. The fish-
lizard, its contemporary, must have been a formidable rival and a
dangerous enemy, whom to attack would be unadvisable.

Speaking of the habits of the long-necked sea-lizard, Mr. Cony-
beare, in his second paper, already alluded to, says, ‘‘ That it
was aquatic, is evident from the form of its paddles; that it was
marine, is almost equally so, from the remains with which it is uni-
versally associated ; that it may occasionally have visited the shore,
the resemblance of its extremities to those of the turtle may lead
us to conjecture; its motion, however, must have been very
awkward on land; its long neck must have impeded its progress
through the water, presenting a striking contrast to the organisa-
tion which so admirably fits the Ichthyosaurus to cut through the
waves.

“May it not therefore be concluded (since, in addition to these
circumstances, its respiration must have required frequent access
of air) that it swam upon or near the surface, arching back its
long neck like the swan, occasionally darting it down at the fish
which happened to float within its reach? It may, perhaps, have
lurked in shoal-water along the coast, concealed among the sea-
weed, and, raising its nostrils to a level with the surface from a
considerable depth, may have found a secure retreat from the
assaults of dangerous enemies ; while the length and flexibility of
its neck may have compensated for the want of strength in its
jaws and its incapacity for swift motion through the water, by the
suddenness and agility of the attack which they enabled it to
make on every animal fitted for its prey, which came within its
extensive sweep.”

More than twenty species of long-necked sea-lizards are known
to geologists.

Professor Owen, in his great work on Lritish Fossil Reptiles,
when describing the huge Plesiosaurus dolichodirus from Dorset,
suggests that the carcase of this monster, after it sank to the

THE GREAT SEA-LIZARDS AND THEIR ALLIES. 55

bottom of the sea, was preyed upon by some carnivorous animal
(perhaps sharks). It seems, he says, as if a bite of the neck had
pulled out of place the eighth to the twelfth vertebrae. Those at
the base of the neck are scattered and dispersed as if through
more “tugging and riving.” So with regard to its body, pro-
bably some hungry creature had a grip of the spine near the
middle of the back, and pulled all the succeeding vertebree in the
region of the hind limbs, Thus we get a little glimpse of scenes
of violence that took place at the bottom of the bright sunny
seas of the period when the clays and limestones of the Lias
rocks were being deposited in the region of Lyme-Regis.

As time went on, these curious reptiles increased in size, until,
in the period when our English chalk was being formed (Creta-
ceous period), they reached their highest point (see p. 147). After
that they became extinct—whether slowly or somewhat suddenly
we cannot tell.

Until more is known of the ancient life of the earth, it will not
be possible to say with certainty what were the nearest relations
of the long-necked sea-lizards. They first appear in the strata
of the New Red Sandstone, which is below the Lias. Certain
little reptiles, about three feet long, from the former rocks, known
as Neusticosaurus and Lariosaurus, seem to be rather closely
related to the creatures we are now considering, and to connect
them with another group, namely, the Pliosaurs. They were
partly terrestrial and partly aquatic; but it is not easy to say
whether their limbs had been converted into true paddles or not.
At any rate, there is every reason to believe that the long-necked
sea-lizards were descended from an earlier form of land reptile.
They gradually underwent considerable modifications, in order to
adapt themselves to an aquatic life. We noticed that the same
conclusion has been arrived at with regard to the fish-lizards.
Both these extinct groups, therefore, present an interesting analogy
to whales, which are now considered to have been derived, by a
like series of changes, from mammals that once walked the earth.

60 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

The Plesiosaur presents, on the one hand, points of resem-
blance to turtles and lizards,—on the other hand, to crocodiles,
whales, and, according to some authorities, even the strange
Ornithorhynchus. But it will be very long before its ancestry can
be made known. In the mean time, we must put it in a place
somewhere near the fish-lizards, and leave posterity to complete
what has at present only been begun. It must, however, be
borne in mind that some of the above resemblances are purely
accidental, and not such as point to relationship. Because their
flippers are like those of a whale, it does not mean that Plesiosaurs
are related to modern whales. It only means that similar
habits tend to produce accidental resemblances — just as the
whales and porpoises, in their turn, resemble fishes. To make
torpedoes go rapidly through the water, inventors have given
them a fish-like shape ;—in the same way the early forms of
mammals, from which whales are descended, gradually adapted
themselves to a life in the water, and so became modified to
some extent to the shapes of fishes.

The Pliosaurs, above mentioned, are evidently relations, but
with short necks instead of long ones. They had enormous
heads and thick necks. Fine specimens of their huge jaws,
paddle-bones, etc., may be seen at the end of the reptile-gallery
at Cromwell Road. One of the skulls exhibited there is nearly
six feet long, while a hind paddle measures upwards of six and a
half feet in length, of which thirty-seven inches is taken up by
the thigh-bone alone. The teeth at the end of the jaws are truly
enormous. One tooth, from a deposit known as the Kimmeridge
Clay, is nearly a foot long from the tip of the crown to the base of
the root. In some, the two jaw-bones of the lower jaw are partly
united, as in the sperm-whale or cachalot. Creatures so armed
must have been very destructive.

CHAPTER V.

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS.

‘¢ What we know is but little; what we do not know is immense.” —LA
PLACE.

Was there ever an age of dragons? Tradition says there was ;
but there is every reason to believe that the fierce and blood-
thirsty creatures, of which such a variety present themselves, are
but creations of the imagination,—useful in their way, no doubt,
as pointing a moral or adorning a tale, but, nevertheless,
wholly without foundation in fact. The dragon figures in the
earliest traditions of the human race, and crops up again in full
force in European medizval or even late romance.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, Horus, the son of Isis, slays
the evil dragon. In Greece, the infant Hercules, while yet in his
cradle, strangles deadly snakes; and Perseus, after engaging in
fierce struggle with the sea-monster, slays it, and rescues Andro-
meda from a cruel death. In England, we have the heroic legend
of St. George and the Dragon depicted on our sovereigns. But it
is easy to see a common purpose running through these legends.
They are considered by many to be solar myths, and havea moral
purpose. The dragons or snakes are emblems of darkness and
evil ; the heroes emblems of light, and so of good. The triumph
of good over evil is the theme they were intended to illustrate.
The dragons, then, are clearly products of the imagination, based,
no doubt, on the huge and uncouth reptiles of the present human
era, such as crocodiles, pythons, and such creatures.

62 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Amidst much diversity there is yet a strange similarity in the
dragons that figure in the folk-lore of Eastern and Western
peoples. Probably our European traditions were brought by the
tribes which, wave after wave, poured in from Central Asia.

They are, for the most part, unnatural beasts, breathing out
fire, and often endowed with wings, while at the same time
possessing limbs ending in cruel claws, fitted for clutching their
unfortunate victims. The wings seem, to say the least, very much
in the way. Poisonous fangs, claws, scaly armour, and a long
pointed tail were all very well,—but wings are hardly wanted,
unless to add one more element of mystery or terror. Some,
however, are devoid of wings: the Imperial Japanese dragons
showing no sign of such appendages. The Temple Bar griffin is
a grim example of a winged monster. Nevertheless, in spite of
all the manifest absurdities of the dragons of various nations and
times, geology reveals to us that there once lived upon this earth
reptiles so great and uncouth that we can think of no other but
the time-honoured word “ dragon” to convey briefly the slightest
idea of their monstrous forms and characters.

So there is some truth in dragons, after all. But then we must
make this important reservation—viz. that the days of these
dragons were long before the human period ; they flourished in
one of those dim geological ages of which the rocks around us
bear ample records.

It is a strange fact that human fancy should have, in some
cases at least, created monsters not very unlike some of those
antediluvian animals that have, during the present century, been
discovered in various parts of Europe and America. Some
unreasonable persons will have it that certain monstrous reptiles
of the Mesozoic era, about to be described, must have somehow
managed to survive into the human period, and so have suggested
to early races of men the dragons to which we have alluded.
But there is no need for this untenable supposition. By a free
blending together of ideas culled from living types of animals it

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS. 63

would be very easy to construct no small variety of dragons ; and
sO we may believe this is what the ancients did.

Having said so much of dragons in general, let us proceed to
consider those both possible and real monsters revealed of late
years by the researches of geologists. For this purpose we shall
devote the present and two following chapters to the consideration
of a great and wonderful group of fossil reptiles known as
Dinosaurs. The strdnge fish-lizards and sea-lizards previously
described were the geological contemporaries of a host of
reptiles, now mostly extinct, which inhabited both the lands and
waters of those periods known as the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cre-
taceous, which taken together represent the great Mesozoic,
formerly called the Secondary, era.

The announcement by Baron Cuvier—the illustrious founder
of Paleontology—that there was a period when our planet was
inhabited by reptiles of appalling magnitude, with many of the
features of modern quadrupeds, was of so novel and startling a
character as to require the prestige of even his name to obtain
for it any degree of credence. But subsequent discoveries have
fully confirmed the truth of his belief, and the “ age of reptiles”
is no longer considered fabulous. This expression was first
used by Dr. Mantell as the title of a paper published in the
Edinburgh Philosophical Journal in 1831, and serves to remind
us that reptilian forms of life were once the ruling class among
animals.

The Dinosaurs are an extinct order comprising the largest
terrestrial and semi-aquatic reptiles that ever lived; and while
some of them in a general way resembled crocodiles, others show
in the bony structures they have left behind a very remarkable
and interesting resemblance to birds of the ostrich tribe. This
resemblance shows itself in the pelvis, or bony arch with which
the hind limbs are connected in vertebrate or back-boned animals,
and in the limbs themselves. This curious fact, first brought
into notice by Professor Huxley, has been variously interpreted

64 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

by anatomists; some concluding, with Professor Huxley, that
birds are descended from Dinosaurs ; while others, with Professor
Owen, consider the resemblance accidental, and in no way
implying relationship. Huxley has proposed the name Ornitho-
scelida, or bird-legged, for these remarkable reptiles.

Dinosaurs must have formerly inhabited a large part of the
primeval world ; for their remains are found, not only in Europe,
but in Africa, India, America, and even in Australia; and the
geologist finds that they reigned supreme on the earth throughout
the whole of the great Mesozoic era.

Their bodies were, in some cases, defended by a formidable
coat of armour, consisting of bony plates and spines, as illustrated
by the case of Scelidosaurus (p. 105), thus giving them a
decidedly dragon-like appearance. The vertebra, or bony seg-
ments of the back-bone, generally have their centra hollow on
both sides, as in the Ichthyosaurus ; but in the neck and tail they
are not unfrequently hollow on one side and convex on the
other. In some of the largest forms the vertebrae are excavated
into hollow chambers. This is apparently for the sake of
lightness ; for a very large animal with heavy solid bones would
find it difficult to move freely. In this way strength was combined
with lightness.

All the Dinosaurs had four limbs, and in many cases the hind
pair were very large compared to the fore limbs. They varied
enormously in size, as well as in appearance. Thus certain of
the smaller families were only two feet long and lightly built ;
while others were truly colossal in size, far out-rivalling our
modern rhinoceroses and elephants.

The limbs of Cetiosaurus, for example, or of Stegosaurus,
remind us strikingly of those of elephants. The celebrated Von
Meyer was so struck with this likeness that he proposed the name
Pachypoda for them, which means thick-footed. Professor Owen
opposed this name; for it was misleading, and only applied to
a few of them. He therefore proposed the name we have already

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSA URS. 65

been using, viz. Dinosauria,! and this name has been generally
retained. We are thus led to connect them with lizards and
crocodiles, rather than with birds or quadrupeds. The strange
and curiously mixed characters of the old-fashioned reptiles is
forcibly illustrated by these differences of opinion among leading
naturalists. Professor Seeley, another living authority, refuses
to consider them as reptiles, at least in the ordinary sense of the
word.

Extinct forms of life are often so very different to the creatures
inhabiting the world of to-day, that naturalists find it a hard task
to assign them their places in the animal kingdom. The classes,
orders, and families under which living forms are grouped are
often found inadequate for the purpose, so much so that new
orders and new families require to be made for them; and then
it is often quite impossible to determine the relations of these
new groups to the old ones we are accustomed to. Dinosaurs
offer a good example of this difficulty. Were they related to
ancient crocodiles? No one can say for certain ; but it is quite
possible, and even probable. Again, did certain long-legged
Dinosaurs eventually give rise by evolution to the running birds,
ostriches, emeus, etc.? This, although supported by weighty
authority, is a matter of speculation: we ought to be very careful
in accepting such conclusions, It may perhaps be safer to look
upon the ancestry of birds as one of those problems on which
the oracle of science cannot at present declare itself.

Various attempts have been made to classify Dinosaurs, and
arrange them in family groups; but, considering our imperfect
knowledge, it will be wise to regard all such attempts as purely
temporary and provisional, although in some ways convenient.
Professor Marsh, of Yale College, U.S., whose wonderful discoveries
in the far West have attracted universal attention, has grouped
the Dinosaurs into five sub-orders. It will, however, be sufficient
for our purpose if we follow certain English authorities who

' Greek—deinos, terrible ; sauros, lizard.

66 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

divide them into three groups—taking the names given by Pro-
fessor Marsh, only running together some which he would
separate.

We shall first consider the very interesting and huge forms in-
cluded in his sub-order the Sauropoda, or lizard-footed Dinosaurs.
Various parts of the skeletons, such as vertebra, leg-bones, etc.,
of these cumbrous beasts have long been known in this country ;
but Professor Marsh was the first person to discover a complete
skeleton.

We shall, therefore, now turn our attention to the bony frame-
work of the huge Brontosaurus (Fig. 9), a vegetable-feeding
lizard. But it will be necessary to completely lay aside all our
previous notions taken from lizards of the present day, with their
short legs and snake-like scaly bodies, before we can come to
any fair conclusion with regard to this monstrous beast.

It was nearly sixty feet long, and probably when alive weighed
more than twenty tons! that it was a stupid, slow-moving reptile,
may be inferred from its very small brain and slender spinal
cord. By taking casts of the brain-cavities in the skulls of
extinct animals, anatomists can obtain a very good idea of the
nature and capacity of their brains ; and in this way important
evidence is obtained, and such as helps to throw light upon their
habits and general intelligence. No bony plates or spines have
been discovered with the remains of this monster ; so that we are
driven to conclude that it was wholly without armour : and, more-
over, there seem to be no signs of offensive weapons of any kind.

Professor Marsh concludes that it was more or less amphibious
in its habits, and that it fed upon aquatic plants and other
succulent vegetation. Its remains, he says, are generally found
in localities where the animal had evidently become mired, just
as cattle at the present day sometimes become hopelessly fixed
in a swampy place on the margin of a lake or river (see p. 19).
Each track made by the creature in walking occupied one
square yard in extent!

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAUORS. 67

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The remarkably small head is one of the most striking features
of this Dinosaur, and presents a curious contrast to the large and
formidable skulls possessed by some other forms to be described
further on. But it is clear that no animal with such a long neck
as this creature had could have borne the weight of a heavy skull.
Short thick necks and heavy skulls always gotogether. Indeed, the
weight of the long neck itself would have been serious had it not
been for the fact that the vertebrz in this part of the skeleton, and
as far as the region of the tail, have large cavities in the sides of

I.

Fic. 10.—Neck vertebre of Brontosaurus.

I. Front view. 2. Back view.

the centra. This cavernous structure of the vertebre gradually
decreases towards the tail. The cavities communicated with a
series of internal cavities which give a kind of honeycombed
structure to the whole vertebra. This arrangement affords a
combination of strength and lightness in the massive supports
required for the huge ribs, limbs, and muscles, such as could not
have been provided by any other plan. (See Fig. ro.)

The body of the Brontosaur was comparatively short, with a fairly
large paunch (see restoration, Plate IV.). The legs and feet were

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THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS. 69

strong and massive, and the limb-bones solid. Asif partly in order
to balance the neck, we find a long and powerful tail, in which
the vertebrze are nearly all solid. In most Dinosaurs the fore
limbs are small compared to the hind limbs—e.g. Megalosaurus,
Iguanodon, and Scelidosaurus,—but here we find them unusually
large. In this case, then, it is hardly possible that the creature
walked upon its hind legs, as many of the Dinosaurs did.
But, at the same time, we may believe that occasionally it
assumed a more erect position; and may not the light hollowed
structure of the vertebra in the fore part of the body, already
alluded to, have imparted such lightness as made it possible for
the creature to assume such attitudes? There can be little doubt
but that many other fierce and formidable Dinosaurs were living
at the same time and in the same region with Brontosaurus, whose
remains are found in the Jurassic rocks of Colorado (Atlantosaurus
beds).

How this apparently helpless and awkward animal escaped in
the struggle for existence it is not easy to conjecture; but since
there is reason to believe it was more or less at home in the
water, and could use its powerful tail in swimming, we may
perhaps find a way out of the difficulty by supposing that, when
alarmed by dangerous flesh-eating foes, it took to the water, and
found discretion to be the better part of valour. Although
apparently stupid, the Brontosaur probably possessed a good deal
of cunning, and we can fancy it stretching its long neck above
reeds, ferns, and cycads to get a view of the approaching enemy.

The Sauropoda, or lizard-footed Dinosaurs, show in many ways
a decided approach to a simple or generalised crocodile ; so
much so, that Professor Cope is inclined to include crocodiles and
sauropodous Dinosaurs in the same order. Still, there are im-
portant differences in other members of this sub-order. Unfor-
tunately, our knowledge is at present rather limited, owing to the
want of complete skeletons. Vertebrz, limb-bones, skulls, and
teeth have all been discovered through the zeal and energy of

70 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Professor Marsh and his comrades, in the far west of America, as
well as by the researches of English geologists, assisted by the
labours of many ardent collectors of fossils, in this country. Some
of these may now be briefly considered.

In Plate V. we have endeavoured to give some idea of a
huge thigh-bone (femur) belonging to the truly gigantic Dinosaur
called Atlantosaurus. It is six feet two inches long, and a cast
of it may be seen in the fossil reptile gallery of the British Museum
of Natural History (Wall-case No. 3). It should be mentioned,
however, that the original specimen is partly restored, so that its
exact length to an inch or so is not quite certain. In our illustra-
tion it is shown to be a little taller, when placed upright, than
a full-grown man. Professor Marsh, the fortunate discoverer
of this wonderful bone, calculates that the Atlantosaurus must
have attained a length of over eighty feet! and, assuming that it
walked upon its hind feet, a height of thirty feet !

It doubtless fed upon the luxuriant foliage of the sub-tropical
forests, portions of which are preserved with its remains. Besides this
thigh-bone, Professor Marsh has procured specimens of vertebrze
from the different parts of the vertebral column; but no skull or
teeth. The vertebree are hollowed out much in the same way as
those of Brontosaurus. ‘The fore limbs were large, as in the latter
animal ; and the extremities of the limbs were provided with claws.
Taking all present evidence, it appears that the Atlantosaurus
bore a general resemblance to its smaller contemporary. We can
therefore form a fairly good idea of its aspect and proportions.

The same Jurassic strata from the Rocky Mountains‘ have
yielded remains of another big Dinosaur, belonging to the same
family. This genus, which has been named the Apatosaurus, is
represented by a nearly complete skeleton, in the Yale College
Museum ; and is fortunately in an excellent state of preservation.
Another species, of smaller size, though not so complete, adorns
the same collection. This was about thirty feet long, and is

known as Apatosaurus grandis.

THIGH-BONE OF THE LARGEST OF THE DINOSAURS, ATLANTOSAURUS,

From a cast in the Natural History Museum. Length 6 feet 2 inches.
PLaTE V.

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS. 71

Morosaurus, another important genus, is known from a large
number of individuals discovered in the now famous Atlantosaurus
beds of Colorado, including one nearly complete skeleton. The
head of this creature was small; the neck elongated; and the
vertebrze of the neck are lightened by deep cavities in their centra,
similar to those in birds of flight. The tail, also, was long. When
alive, this Dinosaur was about forty feet in length. It probably
walked on all fours; and in many other respects was very unlike
a typical Dinosaur. The brain was small, and it must have been
sluggish in all its movements. The nearly complete remains of
Morosaurus grandis were found togéther in a very good state of
preservation in Wyoming, and many of the bones lay just in
their natural positions.

Diplodocus, of which several incomplete specimens have been
discovered, was intermediate in size between Atlantosaurus and
Morosaurus, and may have reached when living, a length of forty
or fifty feet. Its skull was of moderate size, with slender jaws.
The teeth were weaker than those of any other known Dinosaur,
and entirely confined to the front of the jaws. Professor Marsh
concludes from the teeth that Diplodocus was herbivorous, feeding
on succulent vegetation, and that it probably led an aquatic life.
Fig. 11 shows its skull.

The remains of this interesting Dinosaur (Brontosaurus), which
in several ways differs from other members of the “ lizard-footed ”
group, were found in Upper Jurassic beds, near Canon City, Colo-
rado. A second smaller species was also discovered near Morrison,
Colorado. All the remains lay in the Atlantosaurus beds. These
strata—the tomb in which Nature has buried up so many of her
dragons of old time—can be traced for several hundred miles on
the flanks of the Rocky Mountains, and are always to be known
by the bones they contain. They lie above the Triassic strata
and just below the Sandstone of the Dakota group. Some have
regarded them as of Cretaceous age; but, judging from their
fossils, there can be but little doubt that they were deposited

72 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

during the Jurassic period—probably in an old estuary. They
consist of shale and sandstone.

Besides the numerous Dinosaurs, Professor Marsh’s colleagues
have found abundant remains of crocodiles, tortoises, and fishes,
with one Pterodactyl, a flying reptile (see chap. vili.), and several
small marsupials. ‘The wonderful collection of American Jurassic
Dinosaurs in the Museum of Yale College includes the remains
of several hundred individuals, many of them in exceilent pre-

Fic. 11.—Head of Diplodocius.
I. Side view. 2. Front view.

servation, and has afforded to Professor Marsh the material for
his classification already alluded to.

ENGLISH DINOSAURS OF THE LIZARD-FOOTED GROUP.

Unfortunately, there are at present no complete skeletons known
of English Dinosaurs related to the American forms above de-
scribed. But, since the English fossils were first in evidence by
many years, and Marsh’s discoveries have confirmed in a remark-
able way conclusions drawn by Owen, Huxley, Hulke, and Seeley,
and others from materials that were rather fragmentary, it may be
worth while to give some account of these remains and the inter-
pretations they have received.

Dr. Buckland, in his Bridgewater Treatise, 1836, referred to

THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME—DINOSAURS. 73

a limb-bone in the Oxford Museum, from the great Odlite formation
near Woodstock, which was examined by Cuvier, and pronounced
to have once belonged to a whale; also a very large rib, which
seemed whale-like. In 1838 Professor Owen, when collecting
materials for his famous Lepfort on the Fossil Reptiles of Great
Britain, inspected this remarkable limb-bone, and could not
match it with any bones known among the whale tribe; and yet
its structure, where exposed, was like that of the long bone
(humerus) of the paddle of a whale. Later on, he abandoned
the idea that it once belonged to a whale, and it was thought that
the extinct animal in question might have been a reptile of the
crocodilean order. In time, a fine series of limb-bones and
vertebree was added to the Oxford Museum by Professor Phillips
(Dr. Buckland’s successor at Oxford), who pronounced them to
be Dinosaurian. The name “ Cetiosaurus”! (or Whale-lizard),
originally given by Owen, was unfortunate, because there is really
nothing whale-like about it, except a certain coarse texture of
some of the bones.

In 1848 Dr. Buckland announced the discovery of another
limb-bone (a femur), which Owen referred to Cetiosaurus ; it was
four feet three inches in length. Between 1868 and 1870, how-
ever, a considerable portion of a skeleton was discovered in the
same formation at Kirtlington Station, near Oxford. These
remains were the subject of careful examination by Professors
Owen and Phillips. The femur this time was five feet four inches
long. Their studies threw much light on the nature and habits
of Cetiosaurus.

Although showing in many ways an approach to the crocodile
type of reptile, yet it was perceived from the nature of the limbs
that they were better fitted for walking on land than are those of
a crocodile, with its sprawling limbs. Still, Professor Owen was
careful to point out that the vertebra of its long tail indicate
suitability as a powerful swimming organ, and concluded that the

1 Greek—fetion, whale ; sauros, lizard.

74 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

creature was more aquatic than terrestrial in its habits. Plaster
casts of the limb-bones may be seen at the British Museum of
Natural History, side by side with the huge Atlantosaurus cast
sent by Professor Marsh.

The Kimmeridge clay of Weymouth has yielded a huge arm-
bone (or humerus), nearly five feet long ; and from Wealden strata
of Sussex and the Isle of Wight vertebree have been collected.
Altogether we have remains of Cetiosaurus from at least half a
dozen counties. Unfortunately, no specimen of a skull has yet
been found, and only two or three small and incomplete teeth,
which may possibly have belonged to some other animal. Pro-
fessor Owen estimated the length of the trunk and tail of the
creature to have been thirty-five or thirty-six feet; but in the
absence of further evidence it was not possible to form any con-
clusion as to its total length. It is evident that Cetiosaurus was
closely allied to the American Brontosaurus (p. 69); and so these
earlier English discoveries have gained much in interest from the
light thrown upon them by Professor Marsh’s huge Saurian.

Another English Saurian of this group was the Ornithopsis,
from Wealden strata in the Isle of Wight, which has been the sub-
ject of careful study by Mr. Hulke and Professor Seeley. Their
conclusions, based on the examination of separate portions of the
skeleton (such as vertebrz), have been singularly confirmed by
the discovery of Brontosaurus.

In Ornithopsis the vertebree of the neck and back, though of
great size, were remarkably light, and yet of great strength. One
of the vertebrz of the back had a body, or centrum, ten inches
long. Hoplosaurus and Pelosaurus were evidently reptiles closely
allied to the above types; but at present are so imperfectly known
that we need not consider them here.

CHAPTER Vic

DINOSAURS (continued).

‘Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately termed ‘Medals of
Creation.’” —Dr. MANTELL,

WHEN any tribe of plants or animals becomes very flourishing,
and spreads over the face of the earth, occupying regions far
apart from one another, where the geographical and other con-
ditions, such as climate, are unlike, its members will inevitably
develop considerable differences among themselves.

During the great Mesozoic period, Dinosaurs spread over a
large part of the world ; they became very numerous and powerful.
Just as the birds and beasts (quadrupeds) of to-day show an almost
endless variety, according to the circumstances in which they are
placed, so that great and powerful order of reptiles we are now
considering ran riot, and gave rise to a variety of forms, or types.
Those described in the last chapter were heavy, slow-moving
Dinosaurs, of great proportions, and were all herbivorous creatures,
apparently without weapons of offence or defence.

The group Theropoda, or “beast-footed” Dinosaurs, that partly
form the subject of the present chapter, were all flesh-eating
animals ; and, as we shall discover from their fossilised remains,
were of less size, and led active lives. In fact, they acted in
their day the part played by lions and tigers to-day.

In the year 1824 that keen observer and original thinker, the
Rev. Dr. Buckland, described to the Geological Society of London
some remains of a very strange and formidable reptile found in

76 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the Limestone of Stonesfield, near Woodstock (about twelve miles
from Oxford). This rock, known as “ Stonesfield slate” from its
property of splitting up into thin layers, has long been celebrated
for its fossil remains, and from it have also been obtained the
bones of some early mammals. It is a member of the Lower
Oolitic group.

The portions of skeleton originally discovered consisted of part
of a lower jaw, with teeth, a thigh bone (femur), a series of
vertebree of the trunk, a fewribs, and some other fragments. The
name Megalosaurus,! or “ great lizard,” suggested itself both to
Dr. Buckland and Baron Cuvier, because it was evident from the
size of the bones that the creature must have been very big. It
is true these bones were not found together in one spot; but
Professor Owen came to the conclusion that they all belonged to
the same species.

No entire skeleton of the Megalosaur has ever been found, but
there was enough material to enable Dr. Buckland, Professor
Owen, and Professor Phillips to form a very fair idea of its general
structure. It should be mentioned here that Dr. Mantell, the
enthusiastic geologist to whose labours paleontologists are greatly
indebted, had previously discovered similar teeth and bones in
the Wealden strata of Tilgate Forest. Sherborne, in Dorset, is
another locality which has yielded a fine specimen of parts of both
jaws with teeth. A cast of this may be seen in the geological
collection at South Kensington. It was found in the Inferior
Oolite (Wall-case IV.); the- original specimen lies in the
museum of Sherborne College. Remains of Megalosaurus have
also been found at the following places : Lyme-Regis and Watchet
(in the Lias); near Bridport (in Inferior Oolite) ; Enslow Bridge
(upper part of the Great Oolite and Forest Marble Beds); Wey-
mouth (in Oxford Clay) ; Cowley and Dry Sandford (in the Coral
Rag); Malton in Yorkshire (in Coralline Oolite); also in
Normandy. ‘They have also been found in Wealden strata.

1 Greek—mevas, great ; sauros, lizard.
fo} > > >

DINOSAURS. 77

The portion of a lower jaw in the Oxford Museum is twelve
inches long, with a row of nine teeth, or sockets for teeth, The
structure of the teeth leaves no doubt as to the carnivorous habits
of the creature. With a length of perhaps thirty feet, capable of
free and rapid movement on land, with strong hind limbs, short
head, with long pointed teeth, and formidable claws to its feet,
the Megalosaur must have been without a rival among the car-
nivorous reptiles on this side of the world. It probably walked
for the most part on its hind legs, as depicted in our illustration,
and Professors Huxley and Owen, on examining the bones in
the Oxford Museum, were much impressed with the bird-like
character of some parts of the skeleton, showing an approach to
the ostrich type. The form of the teeth, as pointed out by Dr.

Fic. 12.—Lower jaw-bone of Megalosaurus, with teeth.

Buckland, exhibits a remarkable combination of contrivances.
When young and first protruding above the gum, the apex of the
tooth presented a double cutting edge of serrated enamel ; but as
it advanced in growth its direction was turned backwards in the
form of a pruning knife, and the enamelled sawing edge was con-
tinued downwards to the base of. the inner and cutting side, but
became thicker on the other side, obtaining additional strength
when it was no longer needed as a cutting instrument (Fig. 12).
The genus Megalosaurus—now rendered classic through the
labours of Professors Buckland, Phillips, and Owen—may be
regarded as the type of the carnivorous Dinosaurs ; and it affords
an excellent and instructive instance of the gradual restoration of
the skeleton of a new monster from more or less fragmentary
remains. Certain very excusable errors were at first made in the

78 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

restoration, but these have since been rectified by a comparison
with the allied American forms, such as Allosaurus, of which nearly
entire skeletons have of late been discovered in strata of Jurassic
age—in fact, the same rock in Colorado as that in which the huge
Atlantosaurus bones lay hid. The accompanying woodcut (Fig.
13) shows how the skeleton has been restored in the light of
these later discoveries of Professor Marsh. The large bones of
the limbs of these formidable flesh-eating monsters were hollow,
and many of the vertebrze, as well as some of those of the feet,

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Fic. 13.—Skeleton of Megalosaurus, restored. (After Meyer.)
contained cavities, or were otherwise lightened in order to give

the creature a greater power of rapid movement.

It is not very difficult to imagine a Megalosaur lying in wait for
his prey (perhaps a slender, harmless little mammal of the ant-
eater type) with his hind limbs bent under his body, so as to bring
the heels to the ground, and then with one terrific bound from
those long legs springing on to the prey, and holding the mammal
tight in its clawed fore limbs, as a cat might hold a mouse. Then
the sabre-like teeth would be brought into action by the powerful
jaws, and soon the flesh and bones of the victim would be gone!
(See Plate VI.)

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‘IGNVIMNONY SNYNVSOTVOAW SANVSONIG SNONOAINUVO V

DINOSAURS. 79

As we remarked before, the carnivorous Dinosaurs were the
lions and tigers of the Mesozoic era, and, what with small mammals
and numerous reptiles of those days, it would seem that they were
not limited in their choice of diet.

It is a question not yet decided whether Dinosaurs laid eggs as
most modern reptiles do, or were viviparous like quadrupeds ; but
Professor Marsh thinks there are reasons for the latter supposition.

During the early part of the Mesozoic era, at the period known
as the Triassic (New Red Sandstone), Dinosaurs flourished
vigorously in America, developing a great variety of forms and
sizes. Although but few of their bones have as yet been dis-
covered in those rocks, they have left behind unmistakable
evidence of their presence in the well-known footprints and other
impressions upon the shores of the waters which they frequented."
The Triassic Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley has long been
famous for its fossil footprints, especially the so-called “ bird-
tracks,” which are generally supposed to have been made by
birds, the tracks of which they certainly appear to resemble.
But a careful investigation of nearly all the specimens yet dis-
covered has convinced Professor Marsh that these fossil impres-
sions were not made by birds (see Fig. 14). Most of the three-
toed tracks, he thinks, were made by Dinosaurs, who usually
walked upon their hind feet alone, and only occasionally put to
the ground their small fore limbs. He has detected impressions
of the latter in connection with nearly all the larger tracks of the
hind limbs. These double impressions are just such as Dinosaurs
would make ; and, since the only characteristic bones yet found
in the same rocks belong to this order of reptiles, it is but fair to
attribute all these footprints to Dinosaurs, even where no impres-
sions of fore feet have been detected, wzézl some evidence of
birds is forthcoming. ‘The size of some of these impressions, as

1 Since the above was written, Professor Marsh has described, in Zhe
American Journal of Science for June, 1892, several more or less complete

skeletons of Triassic Dinosaurs, lately found, and now in the Yale College
Museum. This is an important discovery.

80 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

well as the length of stride they indicate, is against the idea of
their having been made by birds. Some of them, for instance, are
twenty inches in length, and four or five feet apart! The foot of
the African ostrich is but ten inches long, so we must fall back on

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Fic. 14.—Portion of a slab of New Red Sandstone, from Turner’s Falls,
Massachusetts, U.S., covered with numerous tracks, probably of Dinosaurs
This specimen is now in the Natural History Museum. The separate tracks
are indicated by the numbers. (After Hitchcock.)
the Dinosaurs for an explanation. However, it is quite possible
that some of the smaller impressions were made by birds.

There is at South Kensington a fine series of these and other
specimens of fossil footprints (Gallery No. XI., Wall-cases 8—r1<).
‘The surface of one large slab in the geological collection is eight

DINOSAURS. 81

feet by six feet, and bears upwards of seventy distinct impressions
disposed in several tracks, as shown in Fig. 14. The lines were
added by Dr. Hitchcock, who has published full descriptions in
order to show the direction and disposition of the tracks.

In a presidential address to the Geological Society, Sir Charles
Lyell, speaking of the Connecticut Sandstone and its impressions,
said, “ When I first examined these strata of slate and sandstone
near Jersey City, in company with Mr. Redfield, I saw at once
from the ripple-marked surface of the slabs, from the casts of

Fic. 15.—Portion of a slab, with tracks. (After Hitchcock.)

cracks, the marks of rain-drops, and the embedded fragments of
drift-wood, that these beds had been formed precisely under
circumstances most favourable for the reception of impressions of
the feet of animals walking between high and low water. In the
prolongation of the same beds in the Valley of Connecticut, there
have been found, according to Professor Hitchcock, the footprints
of no less than thirty-two species of bipeds, and twelve of quad-
rupeds. ‘They have been observed in more than twenty localities,
which are scattered over an area of nearly eighty miles from north
G

82 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

to south, in the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut. After
visiting several of these places, I entertained no doubt that the
sand and mud were deposited on an area which was slowly sub-
siding all the while, so that at some points a thickness of more
than a thousand feet of superimposed strata had accumulated in
very shallow water, the footprints being repeated at various intervals
on the surface of the mud throughout the entire series of super-
imposed beds.” When Sir Charles Lyell first examined this
region in 1842, Professor Hitchcock had already seen two thousand
impressions of feet !

It is not difficult to imagine the conditions under which such
impressions may have been preserved, for at the present day
there are to be seen, on some shores, illustrations of similar opera-
tions. Dr. Gould, of Boston, U.S., was the first to call the
attention of naturalists to a very instructive example of such
processes on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, where the tide is
said to rise in some places seventy feet high. Here we have
a very perfect surface for receiving and retaining impressions.
Vast are the numbers of wading and sea-birds that course to and
fro over the extensive tract of plastic red surface left dry by the
far retreat of the tide in the Bay of Fundy. During the period
that elapses between one spring tide and the next, the highest
part of the tidal deposit is exposed long enough to receive and
retain many impressions ; even during the hours ef hot sunshine,
to which, in the summer months, this so-trodden tract is left
exposed, the layer last deposited becomes baked hard and dry,
and before the returning tidal wave has power to break up the
preceding one, the impressions left on that stratum have received
a deposit. A cast is thus taken of the mould previously made,
and each succeeding tide brings another layer of deposit. We
can easily imagine that in succeeding ages the petrifying influences
will consolidate the sandy layers into a fossil rock. Such a rock
would split in such a way, along its natural layers of formation, as
to show the old moulds on one surface, and the casts on the other.

DINOSA ORS. 83

Fic. 16.—Limb-bones of Al/osaurus. (After Marsh.)
I. Fore leg. 2. Hind leg.

Professor Marsh has had the good fortune to discover a very
peculiar new form of carnivorous Dinosaur, to which he has given

84 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the name Ceratosaurus,’ because its skull supported a horn. But
the horn is not the only new feature presented by this interesting
creature. Its vertebre are of astrange and unexpected type; and
in the pelvis all the bones are fused together, as in modern birds.
Externally, also, the Ceratosaurus differed from other members of
the carnivorous group, for its body was partly protected by long
plates in the skin, such as crocodiles have: these extended from
the back of the head, along the neck, and over the back. An
almost complete skeleton was found which indicates an animal
about seventeen feet long. When alive it was probably about
half the bulk of the Allosaurus mentioned above. (See Fig. 16.)
Seen from above, its skull resembles in general outline that of a
crocodile, the facial portion being elongated and gradually taper-

Fic. 17.—Skull of Ceratosaurus. Top view. (After Marsh.)

ing to the muzzle, with the nasal openings separate, and placed
near the end of the snout.

The teeth of this horned Dinosaur resemble those of the
Megalosaur. Its eyes were protected by protuberances of the skull
just above the cavity in which the eye was placed (see Figs. 17 and
18). The brain was a good deal larger in proportion to the size of
the animal than in Brontosaurus.and its allies; so perhaps we may
infer that it was endowed with greater intelligence, as it certainly
was more active in its habits. The fore limbs, as in Megalo-

4} Greek—feras, horn ; sawros, lizard. Some authorities consider it to be
identical with Megalosaurus.

DINOSAURS. 8s

saurus, were small, and some of the fingers ended in powerful
claws, which no doubt it used to good purpose.

Perhaps the most remarkable of all the Dinosaurs was a diminu-
tive creature only two feet in length, which was related to those
we have just been considering, and whose skeleton has been
found almost entire in the now famous Lithographic Stone of
Solenhofen in Bavaria. Of this unique type, the Compsogna-
thus, the skeleton of which is in many ways so bird-like, Professor
Huxley remarks, “It is impossible to look at the conformation
of this strange reptile and to doubt that it hopped, or walked, in

Fic. 18.—Skull of Ceratosaurus nastcornis. (After Marsh.)

an erect or semi-erect position, after the manner of a bird, to
which its long neck, slight head, and small anterior limbs must
have given it an extraordinary resemblance.” (See Fig. 19.)

At the head of this chapter are placed the words of Dr.
Mantell, ‘‘ Fossils have been eloquently and appropriately termed
Medals of Creation,’ and the eloquent passage by which those
words are followed may be transcribed here. He goes on to
say, “For as an accomplished numismatist, even when the
inscription of an ancient and unknown coin is illegible, can
from the half-obliterated effigy, and from the style of art,
determine with precision the people by whom, and the period

86 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

when, it was struck: in like manner the geologist can decipher
these natural memorials, interpret the hieroglyphics with which
they are inscribed, and from apparently the most insignificant
relics trace the history of beings of whom no other records

or

KEP

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as

Fic. 19.—Skeleton of Compsognathus longipfes. (From the Solenhofen lime-
stone.)

are extant, and ascertain the forms and habits of unknown types
of organisation whose races are swept from the face of the
earth, ere the creation of man, and the creatures which are his

DINOSAURS. 87

contemporaries. Well might the illustrious Bergman exclaim,
“¢ Sunt instar nummorum memoralium que de preteritis globi nostri
Satis testantur, ubi omnia silent monumenta historica.”

Geology owes a deep debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Gideon
A. Mantell, who, during the intervals of a laborious professional
life, collected and described the remains of several strange
extinct reptiles, and wrote a number of works on geology, such
as served in his day to advance the science to which he was so
enthusiastically devoted.

We propose to give a brief account of a wonderful group of
Dinosaurs, first introduced to the scientific world through Dr.
Mantell’s labours.

The first of these monsters is the Iguanodon, the earliest known
individual of the “‘bird-footed” division (Ornithopoda). The
history of the gradual reconstruction of its skeleton is an in-
structive instance of the results that may be obtained by a
careful and patient study of fragmentary remains. ‘Through the
labours of Dr. Mantell, in the first half of this century, a consider-
able knowledge was acquired of the greater part of the skeleton,
but certain portions remained a puzzle; these, however, were
eventually explained by Professor Huxley and Mr. Hulke, and a
few years ago a series of complete skeletons were most fortunately
obtained in Belgium, so that now every part of the huge frame-
work of this monster is known to the paleontologist. Its history,
as a fossil, is a most interesting one, and furnishes one more
example of the marvellous insight into the nature of extinct
animals displayed by the illustrious Baron Cuvier. Let us begin
with the teeth, since they were the first part of the monster
brought to light.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remark that, to one
thoroughly acquainted with the structures of living animals, a
tooth, or a series of teeth, will furnish material from which
important conclusions with regard to the structure and habits of
an extinct animal may be drawn. So, also, with regard to some

88 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

other parts, such as limb-bones, but more especially the bones of
which the backbone is composed (known as vertebra). These
are very important. The veteran anatomist, Professor Owen, has
said, “If I were restricted to a single specimen on which to
deduce the nature of an extinct animal, I should choose a
vertebra to work out a reptile, and a tooth in the case of a
mammal.” Seven or eight different ‘‘ characters,” he says, may
be deduced from a reptilian vertebra. It is, of course, impossible

MN

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Z
Z
Z
Z
Z
Z
ZF
ZZ
Z
ZB
BZ
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—F

2

Fic. 20.—Tooth of Iguanodon, with the apex slightly worn. (From the
Wealden Beds of Tilgate Forest. Natural size.) 1. Front aspect, showing
the longitudinal ridges and serrated margins of the crown. 2. View of the
back, or inner surface of the tooth. a. Serrated margins. 4. Apex of the
crown worn by use.

for any one to reconstruct an entire animal from a single bone or
a few teeth, yet such fragments indicate in a general way the
nature of a lost creation and its position in the animal kingdom.
It is all the more important to give to the general reader this
warning, because an impression seems still to remain in the
popular mind that Owen could and did restore extinct types from
a single bone or a single tooth; but no anatomist would attribute
to any mortal man such superhuman power. Let us, therefore,

DINOSAURS. 89

while gratefully acknowledging the debt we all owe to the great
naturalist—who has gone to his rest since our first edition ap-
peared—not attribute to him impossible things. Nor can it be
denied that even he sometimes fell into error, or drew con-
clusions not borne out by later discoveries. It must also be con-
fessed that in some respects he lagged behind in the march of
scientific progress. While on this subject we cannot do better
than quote some remarks of our friend, Mr. A. Smith Woodward,
of the Natural History Museum, in an able review of Sir Richard’s
work on vertebrates.! He says, “Owen, in fact, was Cuvier’s
direct successor, and, apart from his striking hypotheses . . ., it
is in this character that he has left the deepest impression upon
biological science. Extending and elaborating comparative
anatomy as understood by Cuvier, Owen concentrated his efforts
on utilising the results for the interpretation of the fossil remains
—even isolated bones and teeth—of extinct animals. He never
hesitated to deal with the most fragmentary evidence, having
complete faith in the principles established by Cuvier ; and it is
particularly interesting, in the light of present knowledge, to study
the long series of successes and failures that characterise his
work. However, unwittingly, Owen may be said to have con-
tributed most to the demolition of the narrow Cuvierian views.
When dealing with animals closely related to those now living,
his correctness of interpretation was usually assured ; when treating
of more remote types, he could do little more than guess, unless
tolerably complete skeletons happened to be at his disposal... .

“In short, Owen’s work on fragmentary fossils has demon-
strated that the principles of comparative anatomy are very
different from those inferred by Cuvier from his limited field of
observation, and the discoveries of Leidy, Marsh, Cope, Scott,
and Osborn, in America, have finally led to a new era that Owen
only began to foresee clearly in his later days.”

The first specimens of teeth of the Iguanodon were found by

) Natural Science, ii. p. 130. (Feb. 1893.)

go EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Mrs. Mantell, in 1822, in the coarse conglomerate of certain
strata in Tilgate Forest, belonging to the Cretaceous period (see
Table of Strata, Appendix I.). Dr. and Mrs. Mantell subsequently
collected a most interesting series of these remarkable teeth
(which, fora time, puzzled the most learned men of the day), from
the perfect tooth of a young animal, to the last stage, that of a
mere long stump worn away by mastication. In external form
they bore a striking resemblance to the grinders of herbivorous
mammals, and were wholly unlike any that had previously been
known. Even the quarrymen, accustomed to collect the remains
of fishes, shells, and other objects embedded in the rocks, had
not observed fossils of this kind ; and until Dr. Mantell showed
them his specimens, were not aware of the presence of such teeth
in the stone they were constantly breaking up for the roads. The
first specimen that arrested his attention was a large tooth, which,
from the worn surface of its crown, had evidently once belonged
to some herbivorous animal. In form it so entirely resembled
the corresponding part of an incisor tooth of a large pachy-
dermatous animal ground down by use, that Dr. Mantell was
much embarrassed to account for its presence in the ancient
Wealden strata, in which, according to all previous experience,
no fossil remains of mammals would be likely to occur. No
reptiles of the present day are capable of masticating their food ;
how, then, could he venture to assign it to areptile? Here was
a puzzle to be solved, and in his perplexity he determined to try
whether the great naturalist at Paris would be able to throw any
light on the question. Through Sir Charles (then Mr.) Lyell,
this perplexing tooth was submitted to Baron Cuvier ; and great
was the doctor’s astonishment on hearing that it had been without
hesitation pronounced to be the upper incisor of a rhinoceros!
The same tooth, with some other specimens, had already been
exhibited at a meeting of the Geological Society, and shown to
Dr. Buckland, Mr. Conybeare, and others, but with no more
satisfactory result. Worse than that: Dr. Mantell was told that

ot

DINOSA URS. gi

the teeth were of no particular interest, and that, without doubt,
they either belonged to some large fish, or were the teeth of a
mammal, and derived from some superficial deposit of the
‘‘clacial drift,” then called Diluvium.

There was one man, however, who foresaw the importance of
Mantell’s discovery, and that was Dr. Wollaston. This dis-
tinguished philosopher, though not a naturalist, supported the
doctor’s idea that the teeth belonged to an unknown herbivorous
reptile, and encouraged him to continue his researches.

As if to add to the difficulty of solving the enigma, certain
bones of the fore limb, discovered soon after in the same quarry
and forwarded to Paris, were declared to belong to a species of
hippopotamus! Another very curious bone—of which we shall
speak presently—was declared to be the lesser horn of a
rhinoceros! The famous Dr. Buckland even went so far as to
warn Dr. Mantell not to publish it forth that these bones and
teeth had been found in the Tilgate Forest strata. To him it
seemed incredible that such remains could have been obtained
from beds older than the superficial drift deposits of the district.
We must bear in mind that in those days palzontology, or the
knowledge of the world’s former inhabitants, was a new science
still in its infancy, and the idea of mammals having existed so far
back as the Cretaceous period must have appeared incredible.

However, the workmen in the quarry were stimulated by
suitable rewards, and at length the doctor’s efforts resulted
in the discovery of teeth which displayed the curious serrated
edges, and the entire form of the unused crown. Having
forwarded specimens and drawings of these to Paris, Dr. Mantell
went to London, and ransacked all the drawers in the Hunterian
Museum that contained jaws and teeth of reptiles, but without
finding any that threw light on this subject. Fortunately, Mr.
Samuel Stuchbury, then a young man, was present, and proposed
to show him the skeleton of an Iguana, which he had himself
prepared from a specimen that had long been immersed in spirits.

g2 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

And now the puzzle was in a fair way to being solved ; for, to his
great delight, the doctor found that the minute teeth of that
reptile bore a closer resemblance in their general form to those
from Tilgate Forest than any others he had ever seen.

In spite of this fortunate discovery, however, others remained
_ obstinate and unconvinced ; and it was not until he had collected
a series of specimens, exhibiting various stages of the teeth, that
the correctness of his opinion was admitted, either as to their true
interpretation, or the age of the strata in which they were
imbedded. And now there came good news from Paris. Cuvier,
with the fresh material submitted to him, had boldly renounced
his previous opinion, and gave the weight of his great authority to
the view maintained by the discoverer of these teeth. In a letter
to the doctor he said that such teeth were quite unknown to him,
and that they belonged to some reptile. He suggested that they
implied the existence of a zew animal, a herbivorous reptile. Time
would either confirm or disprove the idea, and in the mean time
he advised Dr. Mantell to seek diligently for further evidence,
and, if part of a jaw could be found with teeth adhering, he
believed he could solve the problem. In his immortal work,
Ossemens Fossiles, Cuvier generously admits his former mistake,
and said he was entirely convinced of his error.

Baron Cuvier alone amongst the doctor’s friends or corre-
spondents was able to give any hint as to the character and
probable relations of the animal to which the recently discovered
teeth belonged. Being hampered by arduous professional duties
in a provincial town, remote from museums and libraries, Dr.
Mantell transmitted to the Royal Society figures and drawings of
the specimens, and, at the suggestion of the Rev. W. D. Conybeare,
adopted the name Iguanodon (Iguana-tooth) for the extinct
reptile, a name which pointed to the resemblance of its teeth to
those of the modern iguana, a land-lizard inhabiting many parts
of America and the West Indies, and rarely met with north or
south of the tropics. These lizards are from three to five feet in

DINOSAURS. 93

length, and perfectly harmless, feeding on insects and vegetables,
and climbing trees in quest of the tender leaves and buds, which
they chip off and swallow whole; they nestle in the hollows of
rocks, and deposit their eggs in the sands and banks of rivers.

In all living reptiles the insects or vegetables on which they
feed are seized by the tongue or teeth, and swallowed whole, so
that a movable covering to the jaws, similar to the lips and
cheeks of the mammalia, is not necessary, either for seizing and
retaining food, or for subjecting it by muscular movements to the
action of the teeth. It is the power of perfect mastication
possessed by the Iguanodon that is so strange, for it implies a
most remarkable approach in extinct reptiles to characters pos-
sessed now only by herbivorous mammalia, such as horses, cows,
deer, etc. From this and other strange characters seen in the
Dinosaurs, we learn that they in their day played the part of our
modern quadrupeds, whether carnivorous or herbivorous, and
showed a remarkable approach to the mammalian type, which of
course is a much higher one.

It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that Dr. Mantell’s con-
temporaries, with the exception of Cuvier, found in the teeth we
have described an awkward puzzle, and refused to believe that
they belonged to a reptile. Such a notion was at variance with
all previous experience, and we naturally form our conclusions to
a large extent by experience. Let us, then, beware lest we allow
our ideas to be limited by what after all is, as it were, only an
expression of our ignorance. The Hottentot who has never seen
snow would refuse to believe that rain can assume a solid form;
and, in the same way, if we bind ourselves down by experience,
we might refuse to believe in some of the still more wonderful
dinosaurian types to be described in this chapter, such as the
Triceratops, with a pair of large horns, a skull over six feet
long, and limbs larger than those of the rhinoceros! (see p.
Ley):

The strange vagaries of Dinosaurs have led Professor Marsh

94 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

and other authorities to exalt them, from their former position of
a mere order in the reptile class, to the dignity of a sub-class all
to themselves ; and there is much to be said for this view. Com-
pared with the Marsupials, living and extinct, they show an equal
diversity of structure and variations in size from by far the
largest land animals known down to some of the smallest.’

The importance of discovering, if possible, a portion of the jaw
of an Iguanodon was fully recognised by Dr. Mantell, and, urged
on by the encouragement he had received from the illustrious
Cuvier, he eagerly sought for the required evidence. But nearly
a quarter of a century elapsed before it was forthcoming. In
1841 and 1848, however, portions of the lower jaw, with some
teeth attached, were found; and his memoir Ox the Structure of
the Jaws and Teeth of the /guanodon was published by the Royal
Society in 1848. For this important communication the gold
medal of the society was awarded to the author. The second
of these finds (by Captain Brickenden) confirmed in every
essential particular the inferences suggested by the detached
teeth.

The first important connected series of bones of this monster
was discovered in 1834, by Mr. Bensted, in the ‘‘ Kentish Rag ”
quarries of the Lower Greensand formation at Maidstone. Mr.
Bensted, who was the proprietor of the quarry, one day had his
attention drawn by the workmen to what they supposed to be
petrified wood in some pieces of stone which they had been
blasting. He perceived that what they supposed to be wood was
fossil bone, and, with a zeal and care which have always
characterised this estimable man (says Professor Owen) in his
endeavour to secure for science any evidence of fossil remains in
his quarry, he immediately resorted to the spot. He found that
the bore, or blast, by which these remains were brought to light

1 Bauer, after a full critical examination of the Dinosauria, considers that
one order is insufficient, and has proposed to make three orders of them,
which he names after the _Iguanodon, Cetiosaurus, and Megalosaurus.

DINOSAURS. 95

had been inserted into the centre of the specimen, so that the
mass of stone containing it had been shattered into many pieces,
some of which were blown into the adjoining fields! All these
_ pieces he had carefully collected, and, proceeding with equal
ardour and success to the removal of the matrix from the fossils,
he succeeded, after a month’s labour, in exposing them to view,
and in fitting the fragments in their proper place. This valuable
specimen was presented to Dr. Mantell (and afterwards purchased
with the rest of his collection by the British Museum), and its
present condition is the result of his skill, as well as that of its
discoverer. Certain gentlemen in Brighton, anxious that the
specimen should be placed in the hands of the original discoverer
of Iguanodon, purchased and presented it to Dr. Mantell—a
tribute of respect which was highly gratifying to him. (Wall-
case 6.)

It belonged to a young Iguanodon. This fortunate discovery
was one of those Cuvier foresaw, and has served to verify his
sagacious conjecture that some of the great bones collected by
the doctor from the Wealden strata of Sussex belonged to the
same animal, and to confirm other conclusions formed by the
discoverer of the Iguanodon. Great was Dr. Mantell’s delight
on finding that every bone he had ascribed to Iguanodon solely
from analogy was present in the Maidstone specimen. One of
the chief advantages of this discovery was that it afforded
demonstration of the characters of the vertebrae, which, as
previously stated, are very important to the anatomist. Of these
Professor Owen has given full descriptions, and has shown that
they differ from those of any animal previously known, whether
living or extinct.

It is very interesting, in the light of recent discoveries, to
read the conclusions arrived at by Mantell and Owen, with
regard to the organisation of this great Wealden reptile, and to
see how, with the exception of certain details, they have been
confirmed. Considering the imperfect nature of the materials at

96 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

their command, it is wonderful that their forecasts should have
turned out so successful. Thus Professor Owen predicted for
the Iguanodon a total length of twenty-eight feet, and specimens
discovered of late years show a length of twenty-four feet. In
some, the thigh-bone exceeded a yard in length; this indicated
an animal of great size, since in the largest crocodiles this bone
is scarcely a foot long. Again, Dr. Mantell, from a study of the
imperfect jaw-bones in his collection, concluded that the lower
jaw was invested with a well-developed fleshy flexible lip, and
that the mouth was provided with a tongue of great mobility and
power. “There are strong reasons,” he says, ‘‘for supposing
that the lip was flexible, and, in conjunction with the long fleshy
prehensile tongue, constituted the instrument for seizing and
cropping the leaves and branches, which, from the construction
of the molars, we may infer, constituted the chief food of the
Iguanodon. The mechanism of the maxillary organs (jaws), as
elucidated by recent discoveries, is thus in perfect harmony with
the remarkable characters which rendered the first known teeth
so enigmatical ; and in the Wealden herbivorous reptile we have
a solution of the problem, how the integrity of the type of
organisation peculiar to the class of cold-blooded vertebrata was
maintained, and yet adapted, by simple modifications, to fulfil
the conditions required by the economy of a gigantic terrestrial
reptile, destined to obtain support exclusively from vegetable
substances ; in like manner, as the extinct colossal herbivorous
Edentata (sloths, see Chapter XII.), which flourished in South
America ages after the country of the Iguanodon and its in-
habitants had been swept away from the face of the earth.”

Dr. Mantell also was the first to prove, from the nature of the
Wealden strata, that they were deposited in or near the estuary
of a mighty river. With regard to the aspect of the country in
which the Iguanodon flourished, he showed that coniferous trees
probably clothed its Alpine regions; palms and arborescent
ferns, and cycadaceous plants (ze. plants resembling the modern

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*‘SISNALUVSSINUAT NOGONVNADI SXYNVSONIG DILNVDID V

DINOSAURS. 97

zamia, or “‘ false palm”), constituted the groves and forests of its
plains and valleys ; and in its fens and marshes the equisetaceze
(mare’s-tails) and plants of a like nature prevailed.

The Iguanodons of the Wealden epoch did not live and die
where their bones are now found—the condition in which their
fossil relics occur proves that they floated down the streams and
rivers, with rafts of trees and other’ spoils of the land, till, arrested
in their course, they sank down and became buried in the
fluviatile and sometimes marine sediments then being slowly laid
down. In this way only can we account for the generally
broken and rolled condition of the bones, their separation from
each other, the numerous specimens of teeth which must have
been detached from their sockets, and the broken stems and
branches of trees without leaves that have been found in the
Wealden strata of England.

Since the days of Dr. Mantell, the remains of Iguanodon, or
closely allied genera, have been found on the continent, in other
parts of England, and in North America, in strata of various
ages, from the Trias or New Red Sandstone to the Chalk (see
Table of Strata, Appendix I.). The American Hadrosaurus must
have decidedly resembled the Iguanodon.

The beautiful restoration by our artist (plate VII.) is based
upon the Belgian specimens described in the following chapter.

CHAPTER VII.
DINOSAURS (continued).

‘¢ Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history: the planet
and the pebble are attended by their shadows, the rolling rock leaves its
furrows on the mountain side, the river its channel in the soil, the animal its
bones in the stratum, the fern and the leaf inscribe their modest epitaphs on
the coal, the falling drop sculptures its story on the sand and on the stone,—
not a footstep on the snow or on the ground, but traces in characters more or
less enduring the record of its progress.” —EMERSON.

In the year 1878 was announced one of the most fortunate
discoveries known in the whole history of geological science
—a discovery unique of its kind, and one which throws con-
siderable light on the nature of the monster first discovered by
Dr. Mantell. In that year came the good news that no less
than twenty-three Iguanodons had been found in the colliery of
Bernissart, in Belgium, between Mons and Tournai, near the
the French frontier. The coal-bearing rocks (coal-measures) of
this colliery, overlain by chalk and other deposits of later age, are
fissured in many places by deep valleys or chasms more than
218 yards deep. ‘Though now filled up, they must at one time
have been open gorges on an old land surface. Into one of these
chasms were somehow precipitated twenty-three Iguanodons,
numbers of fish, a frog-like animal, several species of turtles,
crocodiles, and numerous ferns similar to those described by Man-
tell from the Weald. It it not easy to conjecture how this large
and varied assemblage of animals came to be collected together
and entombed in this one place, but possibly their carcases were

DINOSAURS. 99

swept by some flood into the chasm in which the remains were
discovered. They were buried in clay interstratified with sand, a
fact which was interpreted in accordance with the above suggestion.

M. de Pauw, the accomplished controller of the workshops in
the Royal Museum of Natural History at Brussels, spent three
whole years in extracting this splendid series of fossils from the
pit-shaft, the bones being brought up from a depth of rather more
than 350 yards. But at the end of this time it was only the
rough material that had been got together, and every block con-
taining bones requires a great deal of most careful labour before
the bones in it are so exposed that they can be properly studied.
Out of the twenty-three specimens, fifteen had, in the year 1883,
been chiselled out, eight remaining to be worked at; and although
five skilled workmen were then constantly at work, progress was
necessarily slow.

In 1883, that is after seven years, two huge entire skeletons had
been set up in a great glass case in the Courtyard of the Museum
at Brussels, and these exhibit with marvellous completeness the
structure of the extinct monster.! The work reflects the highest
credit on M. de Pauw ;’ and the director of the Bernissart Mining
Company, M. Fages, deserves the thanks of all scientific men for

2

so liberally aiding this important undertaking. These specimens
illustrate the conclusion, previously arrived at by Professor Huxley,
that Dinosaurs, as a group, occupy a position in the great chain
of animal life intermediate between reptiles and birds. Indeed,
it is the opinion of this great authority, and of many naturalists
of the present day, that whenever future discoveries may reveal
the ancestry of birds, it will be found that they came from
Dinosaurs, or that both originated from a common ancestor.

The specimens so skilfully set up by M. de Pauw represent

2 In August, 1892, Mr. Dollo wrote, in answer to inquiries from South
Kensington, to say that five are already mounted and exhibited, and five more
are almost ready for mounting. He also stated that the remains represent
twenty-nine individuals, not twenty-three, as above.

2 Geological Magazine, January, 1885.

100 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

two distinct species. The larger one, Iguanodon Bernissartensis,
cannot be less than fifteen feet high, and, measured from the tip
of the snout to the end of the tail, is rather over thirty feet long,
covering nearly twenty-four feet of ground in its erect position
(see Fig. 21). Iguanodon Mantelli is smaller and more slender
looking, with a height of over ten feet, and a length of about
twenty feet. (See Fig. 22.)

The huge three-toed impressions found in Sussex prove that

Fic, 21.—Skeleton of Zewanodon Bernissartensis.

the monster, although owning a body as large as that of an
elephant, habitually walked on its hind legs! Some of the thigh-
bones found by Dr. Mantell measured between four and five feet
in length. It will be seen that the fore limbs are small in com-
parison to the hind limbs. A remarkable feature of the hand is
the large pointed bone at the end of the thumb, forming a kind of |
spur. The conical shape of this bone found by Dr. Mantell, who

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DINOSAURS. IOI

had no clue to its place in the skeleton, led him to suppose that
it was a horn answering to that of a rhinoceros—a conclusion
which Professor Owen refused for various reasons to accept. The
latter concluded that it belonged to the hand, and now we see
that he was right. Unfortunately, certain popular works on
geology, such as Our Earth and its Story (Cassell) still continue
to spread this error, by showing a (very indifferent) restoration of

Fic, 22.—Skull and skeleton of Jewanodon Mantelli. (From Bernissart.)

the Iguanodon with the impossible horn on its nose. It has
been suggested that the spur was a weapon of offence, and that,
when attacked, an Iguanodon may have seized its aggressor in its
short arms, and made use of the spur as a dagger. But this is
only conjecture, and perhaps the spur may have been useful in
seizing and pulling down the foliage and branches of trees, or
in grubbing them up by the roots. Detached specimens of this
curious bone may be seen among the other remains of Iguanodon

102 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

at South Kensington, andalso some of the gigantic tracks already
alluded to. (Gallery IV. on plan, Wall-cases 5 and 6; and
Gallery XI., Wall-case 7.)

The Bernissart specimens even afford some evidence as to
the nature of the integument, or skin, and this supports the
idea previously held that the creature possessed a smooth skin,
or, at least, only slightly roughened. The muzzle was quite tooth-
less, and perhaps may have been sheathed in horn, like the beak
of turtles—an arrangement highly useful for biting off the leaves of
trees.

Fic. 23.—Tracks of J/ewanodon, much reduced. (From Wealden strata,
Sussex. )

Probably it passed much of its time in the water, using its
immense powerful tail as an organ of propulsion. When
swimming slowly it may have used beth sets of limbs, but when
going fast it probably fixed its fore limbs closely beside its body,
and drove itself through the water by means of the long hind
limbs alone. Mr. Dollo, of Brussels, is preparing a final mono-
graph on the Bernissart Iguanodons, a work to which palzontolo-
gists eageriy look forward. There cannot be much doubt that

7

DINOSA URS. 103

these unarmoured Dinosaurs were molested and preyed upon by
their carnivorous contemporaries, such as the fierce Megalo-
saurus, previously described (p. 76). And with regard to this, Mr.
Dollo makes the suggestion that, when on land, their great height
and erect posture enabled them to descry such enemies a long
way off. Their great height must also have stood them in good
stead, by enabling them easily to reach the leaves of trees, tree-
ferns, cycads, and other forms of vegetable life, which constituted
their daily food. (See restorations, Plates VII. and VIII.)

Should the reader visit the ‘ geological island” in the grounds
of the Crystal Palace, he will see that Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins’s
great model Iguanodon there set up is by no means in accord-
ance with the description given above; but we must remember
how imperfect was the material at his command.

Another Dinosaur, of considerable dimensions, that flourished
during the Wealden period was the Hylzosaurus, also discovered
by Dr. Mantell, and so named by him because it came from the
Weald.t In the summer of 1832, upon visiting a quarry in
Tilgate Forest, which had yielded many organic remains, he
perceived in some fragments of a large mass of stone which had
recently been broken up and thrown in the roadside, traces of
numerous pieces of bone. With great care he cemented together
and fixed in a stout frame, all the portions of this block that he
could find, and set to work to “develop” the block with his
chisel. This work occupied many weeks, but his labour was
rewarded by the discovery of certain new and remarkable features
displayed by this monster ; for it must have presented, when alive,
a formidable array of bony plates and long sharp spines, the
latter of which probably stood in bristling array along the back
and tail, and other parts of the body. (Wall-case 4.) Of the
spines no less than ten were found in this block, varying in
length from five to seventeen inches, the largest being four
inches thick. It is known that many lizards, such as Iguanas

? From Greek—/u/le, wood, or weald; and sauros, lizard.

104 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

and Cycluras, have large processes with horny coverings, forming
a kind of fringe or crest along the back, and, judging by analogy,
Dr. Mantell concluded that this gigantic saurian was similarly
armed with a row of large angular spines covered by a thick
horny investment. As weapons of offence and defence, they
were no doubt highly effective, but their precise arrangement
is still a matter of speculation.

This first specimen displayed, besides the bony scutes and
spines, a portion of the backbone, eleven ribs and portions of
the pectoral arch. A second specimen was found near Bolney,
in Sussex, and was unfortunately almost wholly destroyed by the
labourers ; but Dr. Mantell was able to obtain many of the bones,
such as ribs and limb-bones, and they also indicated a reptile of
great size. A third specimen was brought to light in Tilgate
Forest in 1837 ; but, unfortunately, this also fell into the hands
of the parish labourers, who were unacquainted with its value.
Although with due care a much larger portion of the skeleton
might have been kept, yet Dr. Mantell was able to obtain a fine
series of twenty-six vertebree belonging to the tail, with a total
length of nearly six feet: the same spines were present here also.

No specimen of the skull of this strange monster is known,
and no teeth that can be with certainty referred to it.

Mr. -Waterhouse Hawkins’s model at Sydenham, near the
Iguanodon, was based on the above discoveries, which are
insufficient, and is far from the truth.

The next monster to be described is one that has fortunately
left to posterity a much better record of itself, and probably was
not very unlike the Hylosaurus of Mantell This is the
Scelidosaurus : so named by Professor Owen from the indications
of greater power in the hind legs than in most saurians.' It is
the only known example of an almost entire skeleton of an
English Dinosaur, and the history of its discovery is rather

1 From Greek—sce/7s, limb, and sauros, lizard,

*aIOU IO Jaa} ZI YZuaT ‘X[ ALVIg
‘INOSIMUVH SQUNVSOCITADS SANVSONIG GAYNOWUV NV

DINOSAURS. 105

curious. Some time previous to 1861, Mr. J. Harrison, of
Charmouth, obtained from the Lower Lias of that neighbourhood
portions of the hind limb of a Dinosaur, and, later on, a nearly
complete skull. These specimens were described by Owen, and
the genus was founded on them. Mr. Harrison, whose discovery
aroused great interest, continued to search on the same spot,
and was rewarded by finding all the rest of the skeleton, except

WES.
{ >,

Fic. 24.—Restored skeleton of Scelidosaurus Harrisoni (after Woodward),
greatly reduced, from the Lower Lias of Charmouth, Dorset. The figure
shows the large lateral dermal spines on the shoulders, and the long lateral
line of smaller spines, reaching from the pectoral region to the extremity of the
tail.
most of the neck vertebrae. This was extracted in several blocks,
and these, after careful “development ” of the bones, were fitted
together so as to exhibit the whole skeleton. This most valuable
specimen can now be seen at South Kensington in a separate glass
case, and is one of the treasures of the unrivalled gallery of fossil
reptiles. The case is placed so that both sides of the specimen
can be seen (Case Y, Gallery IV., on plan). Its length is about

106 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

twelve feet; perhaps the individual it represents was not fully
grown, but, on account of the absence of most of the neck vertebree,
it is impossible to give the exact length. Both hind limbs are
entire and well seen, but of the fore limbs the hands are wanting.
The former were provided with four ‘ functional” toes—that is,
toes that were used,—and one ‘“‘rudimentary” or unused one.
There were two big spines, one placed on each shoulder, and a series
of long plates arranged in lines along the back and side. Plate
IX. shows an attempted restoration of this remarkable Dinosaur
based upon the skeleton just described. It seems to have been
organised for a terrestrial rather than an aquatic life, but to have
been amphibious, frequenting the margins of rivers or lakes.
Professor Owen considers that the carcase of this individual
drifted down a river emptying itself in the old Liassic Sea, on
the muddy bottom of which it would settle down when the skin
had been so far decomposed as to permit the escape of gases
due to decomposition. In that case the carcase would attract
large carnivorous fishes and reptiles, such as swarmed in this old
sea, so that portions of the skin and flesh would probably be
torn away before the weight of the bones had completely buried
it in mud. In this way, perhaps, the loss of much of the
external armature and of the two fore feet may be accounted
for. The hind limbs, being stronger, were better able to resist
such attacks, and they are therefore preserved. Like many other
specimens, this fossil has, in the course of ages, been subjected
to enormous pressure from overlying strata, causing compression
and dislocation or fracture.

But there were in existence during the long Jurassic period,
other and even stranger forms of armoured Dinosaurs. One of
these, only imperfectly known at present, was the many-spined
Polacanthus.! This remarkable monster had the whole region of
the loins and haunches protected by a continuous sheet of bony
plate armour, rising into knobs and spines, after the fashion of the

1 From Greek—o/us, many, and acantha, spine.

DINOSAURS. 107

shield or carapace of certain extinct armadillos known as Glypto-
donts (see Chapter XII.). A specimen of such a shield is .to be
seen in the collection at South Kensington (Wall-case 4). It is to
be hoped that, some day, further remains of the Polacanthus will
be brought to light, so that a restoration may become possible.
Dr. Mantell had already pointed out certain analogies between
Iguanodon and the huge extinct sloths of the South American
continent, that flourished in the much more recent Pleistocene
period ; and this idea is now considerably strengthened by the
later discoveries of armoured Dinosaurs. These are his words:
“In fine, we have in the Iguanodon the type of the terrestrial
herbivora which, in the remote epoch of the earth’s physical
history termed by geologists the age of Reptiles, occupied the
same relative position in the scale of being, and fulfilled the same
general purposes in the economy of nature, as the Mastodons,
Mammoths, and Mylodons (extinct sloths) of the Tertiary period,
and the existing pachyderms.”

It is, perhaps, one of the most interesting discoveries of modern
geology, that certain races of animals now extinct have in various
ways assumed some of the characteristics presented by animals
much higher in the scale of being, that flourish in the present day.
It seems as if there had been some strange law of anticipation at
work, if we may venture so to formulate the idea. It has already
been shown how the great saurians Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus
presumed to put on some of the characters of whales, and to play
their 7é/e in nature, though they were only reptiles ; how the
carnivorous Dinosaurs acquired teeth like those now possessed by
lions and tigers, which also are mammals; and now we find
herbivorous Dinosaurs imitating the Glyptodon, an armadillo
that lived in South America almost down to the human period. We
shall not lose sight of this very interesting and curious discovery,
for other cases will present themselves to our view in future
chapters. The reader might ask, ‘‘If reptiles were able in these
and other ways to imitate the mammals of to-day, or of yesterday,

108 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

why should they not have been able to go a few steps further,
and actually decome mammals?” The Evolutionist, if confronted
with such a question, would say, that there is no evidence of
Dinosaurs turning into mammals, but that both may have branched
off at an early geological period (say the Permian) from a
primitive group of reptiles, or even of amphibians.

It must be borne in mind that, during the “age of reptiles”
(Mesozoic period), the mammalian type was but feebly represented
by certain small and humble forms, probably marsupials. As far
as we know, there were no big quadrupeds such as flourish to-day ;
therefore reptiles played their part, and in so doing acquired some
of their habits and structural peculiarities. It is difficult for us,
living in an age of quadrupeds, to realise this, and to picture to
ourselves reptilian types posing as “lords of creation,” or, to use
a homely phrase, “strutting in peacock’s feathers.”

Leaving now the English herbivorous Dinosaurs, we pass on to
those still more wonderful forms discovered of late years by Pro-
fessor Marsh. The former have been treated at considerable
length, first because they are English, and, as such, the history of
their discovery possesses considerable interest ; secondly, because
their elucidation reflects the highest credit on our great pioneers
in this fruitful field of research, and illustrates the manner in
which great naturalists have been able to draw most important
and wonderful conclusions (afterwards verified in most cases) from
material apparently far from promising. For example, Cuvier’s
prophecy of the Iguanodon from a few teeth is a striking example
of the result of reasoning from the known to the unknown, an
example which seems to us worthy to be ranked with the
discovery of Neptune by Adams and Leverrier, or, to take a more
recent case, the discovery by Mendeleef of the Periodic Law, by
means of which he has foretold the discovery of new chemical
elements.

Whatever may have been the origin of the great mammalian

DINOSAURS. 109

class, the possibility and even probability of birds and Dinosaurs
being descended from a common ancestor is a theory for which
much may be said, and it has been adopted by many leading
naturalists of the present day, who have been convinced by
Professor Huxley’s clear elucidation of the nature of the pelvic
region in the group of Dinosaurs which has been above described
(the Ornithopoda, or bird-footed group). It was Professor
Huxley who first propounded this interesting speculation,
basing his belief on the many bird-like characters presented by
this strange group of extinct reptiles—the small head and fore
limbs, the long and often three-toed hollow hind limbs, the bones
of the pelvis or haunch, their habit of walking in a semi-erect
position on those limbs (as proved by their tracks), and in some
of hopping, as the little Compsgnathus most probably did. And,
last but not least, the strange mixture of bird-like and reptilian
characters presented by certain most anomalous birds dis-
covered by Professor Marsh in American Cretaceous rocks, viz.
the huge Hesperornis and the smaller Ichthyornis. Speaking
on this subject some years ago, Professor Marsh said, ‘It is now
generally admitted by biologists who have made a study of
vertebrates, that birds have come down to us through the
Dinosaurs, and the close affinity of the latter with recent struthious
birds (ostrich, etc.), will hardly be questioned. The case amounts
almost to a demonstration, if we compare with Dinosaurs their
contemporaries, the Mesozoic birds. The classes of birds and
reptiles, as now living, are separated by a gulf so profound that a
few years since it was cited by the opponents of Evolution as the
most important break in the animal series, and one which that
doctrine could not bridge over. Since then, as Professor Huxley
has clearly shown, this gap has been virtually filled by the dis-
covery of bird-like reptiles and reptilian birds. Compsognathus
and Archzopteryx of the Old World, and Ichthyornis and
Hesperornis of the New, are the stepping-stones by which the

IIo EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Evolutionist of to-day leads the doubting brother across the
shallow remnant of the gulf, once thought impassable.” ?

We now pass on to describe two of the strangest and most
wonderful of all the Dinosaurs, recently discovered in the far
West. The first of these is the Stegosaurus,’ or plated lizard,
not wholly unknown before, because part of its skeleton was
found some years ago in a brickfield in the Kimmeridge Clay
at Swindon. Ithas been proved that some of the bones to which
the name Omosaurus® has been applied really belonged to the
former genus.

With such complete specimens now known by Professor
Marsh’s descriptions, it will not be necessary to mention the
meagre remains discovered in this country, or the conclusions
arrived at by Owen and Seeley, interesting as they are.

In the year 1877 Professor Marsh described, in the American
Journal of Science, a considerable portion of a skeleton of a
Stegosaur, remarking that this genus proved to be one of the
most remarkable animals yet discovered. It was found on the
eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains, in strata of Jurassic age;
they indicated an animal about twenty-five feet long, and for this
discovery Science is indebted to Professor A. Lakes and Engineer
H. C. Beckwith of the United States Navy, who found the remains
in Colorado, near the locality of the gigantic Atlantosaurus. The
solid limb-bones seem to point to an aquatic life, but there can
be little doubt that the monster did not pass all its time in the
water. (Fig. 25 shows the skeleton.) *

In 1879 Professor Marsh announced the discovery of additional

1 The Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America. An
address delivered before the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, at Nashville, Tenn., August, 1877. See Mature, vol. xvi.

2 Greek—svegos, roof or covering ; sawros, lizard.

3 Greek—omos, humerus, and sazros, lizard.

4 The writer is informed that this skeleton is not yet mounted in the
Yale College Museum, but that it will be before long. Our artist has drawn
it as if set up, with a man standing by for comparison,

DINOSAURS. IIL

remains from several localities. The most striking feature—from
which the Stegosaur takes its name—was the presence of huge
bony plates belonging to its skin, as well as large and small
spines. Some of the plates were from two to three feet in diameter,
and they were of various shapes. Of the spines, some were of
great size and power, one pair being each over two feet long!
The skull was remarkably small, and more like that of a lizard
than we find in most Dinosaurs ; the jaws were short and
massive. Little was known at first of the brain, but fortunately
a later discovery showed the brain-case well preserved. Later
still, more than twenty other specimens of this Dinosaur were
obtained, so that nearly every portion of the skeleton is now
known. ‘The skulls indicate that the creature possessed large eyes
and a considerable power of smell. The jaws contain but a
single row of teeth in actual use; but as these wore out, they
were replaced by others lodged in a cavity below. Teeth, how-
ever, were not its strong point; they indicate a diet of soft
succulent vegetation. The vertebre have the faces of their
centra more or less bi-concave. Many curious features in the
skeleton can only be explained with reference to the heavy
armour of plates and spines with which the Stegosaur was
provided. Thus the vertebre have their ‘neural spines”
expanded at the summit to aid in supporting part of the armour.
(See Fig. 26.) The fore limbs were short and massive, but pro-
vided with five fingers ; the hind limbs were very much larger and
more powerful. These and the powerful tail show that the monster
could support itself on them as on a tripod, in an upright posi-
tion, and this position must have been easily assumed in conse-
quence of the massive hind quarters. As in Iguanodon, there
were three toes to the hind feet, and these were probably covered
by strong hoofs. ‘The fore limbs could move freely in various
directions like a human arm, and were probably used in self-
defence. (See Fig. 27.) But for this purpose the tail with its
four pairs of huge spines would be very effective, and one could

EXTINCT MONSTERS.

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DINOSAURS. 113

easily imagine that a single deadly blow from such a tail would
be sufficient to drive away, if not to kill, one of the carnivorous
enemies of the species. All the plates and spines were, during
life, protected by a thick horny covering, which must have in-
creased their size and weight. Such a covering seems to be clearly
indicated by certain grooves and impressions that mark their sur-
faces. (See Fig. 28.) The largest plates are unsymmetrical,
and were probably arranged along the back, as in our restoration,
Plate IX. It will be noticed, by those who are familiar with our
first edition, that Plate X. gives a somewhat different representa-
z 2

Fic. 26.—Tail vertebree of Stegosaurus. (After Marsh.)
I. Side view. 2. Front view.

tion of the Stegosaur, in which the length of the hind limbs is
more apparent, and also they are more free from the body.
Finally, the Stegosaur displays a rather remarkable feature ;
for a very large chamber was found in the sacrum’ formed by
an enlargement of the spinal cord. The chamber strongly
resembled the brain-case in the skull, but was about ten times

} The sacrum may be thus defined: the Vertebrz (usually fused together)
which unite with the haunch-bones (7/2) to form the pelvis.

II4 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

as large! So this anomalous monster had two sets of brains, one
in its skull, and the other in the region of its haunches! and
the latter, in directing the movements of the huge hind limbs and

Fic. 27.—Limb-bones of Stegosaurus. (After Marsh.)
1. Fore leg. 2. Hind leg.
tail, did a large share of the work. The subject is a highly sug-
gestive one, but at present requires further explanation.
On the walls of the fossil reptile gallery at South Kensington

DINOSAURS. EES

the reader will find a large framed drawing of the skeleton of
Stegosaurus, kindly sent by Professor Marsh, whose forthcoming
monograph will be welcomed by all paleontologists.

The last, and in some ways the strangest of the Dinosaurs,
was the Triceratops! that flourished in America at the end of the

Fic, 28.—1, 2. Plates of Stegosaurus. The middle figures show their thick-
ness. (After Marsh.)

long Mesozoic era, during the Cretaceous period. The name
refers to the three horn-cores found on the skull, which probably
supported true horns like those of oxen. Whereas the Stegosaur
was provided with quite a small skull, this monster had one of huge

1 Greek—irezs, three ; ceras, horn; ofs, face.

116 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

dimensions and remarkable shape (see Figs. 29 and 30).1_ In the
younger ones it was about six feet long, but in an old individual
must have reached a length of seven or eight feet. Such a skull
is only surpassed by some whales of the present day. ‘Twenty
different skulls of this kind have been found, and Professor Marsh
places the horned Dinosaurs in a separate family, to which he has
given the name Ceratopsidz, or horn-faced. Their remains come
from the Laramie beds, believed to be of Cretaceous age, but repre-
senting a remarkably mixed fauna and flora, so that some have

Fic, 29.—Head of Zriceratops, seen from above. (After Marsh.)

considered them to be Tertiary. The strata containing these fossils
are very rich in organic remains, and have yielded not only other
Dinosaurs, but Plesiosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, many small reptiles,
a few birds, fishes, and small mammals. The Ceratops beds are

1 This skeleton has not yet been set up in the Yale College Museum,
but will be before long. Our artist has drawn it as if set up, with a man
standing by for comparison. In an article in Zhe Californian Illustrated
Magazine for April, 1892 (quoted in the Review of Reviews for May), an
American writer incorrectly describes this monster as ‘‘ higher than Jumbo,
and longer than two Jumbos placed in a row.” But the article is altogether
untrustworthy, and the two ‘‘ restorations” are absurd.

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118 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

of fresh-water or brackish origin, and can now be traced for nearly
eight hundred miles along the east flank of the Rocky Mountains.

In this Dinosaur we find the fore feet larger than usual in
proportion to the hind limbs, and there can be no doubt that it
walked on all fours. Its length was about twenty-five feet. All
the vertebree and limb-bones are solid. The brain was smaller
in proportion to the skull than in any known vertebrate.

The teeth are remarkable in having two distinct roots. The
wedge-like form of the skull is also very peculiar. The two large
horns come immediately over the eyes, and the small one above
the nose; this Dinosaur was, therefore, well provided with
weapons of offence, such as would be highly useful in driving
away or wounding carnivorous enemies. The back part of the
skull rises up into a kind of huge crest, and this during life was
protected by a special fringe of bony plates. Such an arrange-
ment doubtless formed an effective shield to ward off blows when
one Triceratops was fighting another, as bulls or buffaloes of the
present day fight with their horns. The mouths of these Dinosaurs
formed a kind of beak, sheathed in horn.

The body as well as the skull was protected, but the nature
and position of the defensive parts in different forms cannot yet
be determined with certainty. Various spines, bones, and plates
have been found that evidently were meant for the protection of
the creature’s body, and belonged to the skin. Probably some of
these were placed on the back, behind the crest of the skull;
some may have defended the throat, as in Stegosaurus. Alto-
gether, Triceratops is very different to any other Dinosaur. One
cannot help picturing it rather as a fierce rhinoceros-like animal.
In the restoration (Plate XI., Frontispiece) our artist has given it a
thick skin, rather like that of the rhinoceros, only indicating
small bony plates, etc., here and there.

Professor Marsh thinks that as the head increased in size te
bear its armour of bony plates, the neck first, then the fore feet,
and then the whole skeleton was specially modified to support

DINOSA URS. 119

it; and he concludes that as these changes took place in the
course of the evolution of this wonderful Dinosaur, the head at
last became so large and heavy that it must have been too much
for the body to bear, and so have led to its destruction! This
conclusion, if sound, is a warning against carrying “specialisation”
too far. If we wished to write an epitaph on the tomb of the
monster, it ought (according to Professor Marsh) to be, “I and
my race died of over-specialisation.”

After all these various efforts to improve themselves and to
perfect their organisation so as to bring it into harmony with

Fic. 31.—Bony spines belonging to the skin of Z7zceratops. (After Marsh.)

their surroundings, or “environment,” as the biologists say, it
seems rather hard that the Dinosaurs should have been ex-
tinguished, and their place in Nature taken by a higher type ;
but all things have their day, even Dinosaurs.

With regard to the difficulties, hardships, and dangers attend-
ing the discovery and transport of the remains, Professor Marsh’s
concluding remarks may be quoted here, since they give us a
glimpse into the nature of his explorations in the far West that have
now become so famous. He says, “In conclusion, let me say a
word as to how the discoveries here recorded have been accom-
plished. The main credit for the work justly belongs to my able

120 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

assistant, Mr. J. B. Hatcher, who has done so much to bring to
light the ancient life of the Rocky Mountain regions. I can only
claim to have shared a few of the dangers and hardships with
him, but without his skill little would have been accomplished.
If you will bear in mind that two of the skulls weighed nearly
two tons each, when partially freed from their matrix and ready
for shipment, in a deep desert cajion, fifty miles from a railway,
you will appreciate one of the mechanical difficulties overcome.
When I add that some of the most interesting discoveries were
made in the hunting-grounds of the hostile Sioux Indians, who
regard such explorations with superstitious dread, you will under-
stand another phase of the problem. I might speak of even
greater difficulties and dangers, but the results attained repay all
past efforts, and I hope at no distant day to have something
more of interest to lay before you.” *

1 American Fournal of Science, vol. xli. p. 176.

CHAPTER WIT:
FLYING DRAGONS.

‘*Geology does better in reclothing dry bones and revealing lost creations
than in tracing veins of lead or beds of iron.” —RUSKIN.

Tuer great Ocean of Air was not uninhabited during the long
ages of the Mesozoic era, when fishes swarmed in the seas, and
reptiles, such as we have attempted to describe in the last five
chapters, trod the earth, or swam across lakes and rivers. With
such an exuberance of life in various forms, it would indeed have
been strange if the atmosphere had only been tenanted by humble
little insects like dragon-flies, locusts, or butterflies and moths, all
of which we know were living then.

Now, the record of the rocks tells us that one great order of
reptiles somehow acquired the power of flying, and flitted about
as bats or flying-foxes do now. Since they were undoubtedly
reptiles—in spite of certain resemblances to birds—we have
ventured to call them “ flying dragons,” as others have done.
The notion of a flying reptile may perhaps seem strange, or even
impossible to some persons ; but no one has a right to say such
and such a thing “cannot be,” or is “ contrary to Nature,” for the.
world is full of wonderful things such as we should have con-
sidered impossible had we not seen them with our eyes. Charles
Kingsley, in his delightful fairy tale, Zhe Water-Babies, makes
some humorous remarks on that matter, which we may quote
here. He says, ‘‘Did not learned men too hold, till within the
last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible

122 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of
them found fossil up and down the world? People call them
Pterodactyls ; but that is only because they are ashamed to call
them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons
could exist.”

The illustrious Cuvier observes that it was not merely in
magnitude that reptiles stood pre-eminent in ancient days, but
they were distinguished by forms more varied and extraordinary
than any that are now known to exist on the face of the earth.
Among these extinct beings of ages incalculably remote, are the
Pterodactyls,' or ‘‘ wing-fingered” creatures, which had the power
of flight, not by a membrane stretched over elongated fingers as in
bats, nor by a wing without distinct or complete fingers, as in birds,
but by a membrane supported chiefly by a greatly extended little
finger, the other fingers being short and armed with claws.

The only reptile now existing which has any power of sustain-
ing itself in the air is the little Draco Volans, or “ flying lizard,”
so called; but this can scarcely be regarded as a flying animal.
Its hinder pair of ribs, however, are prolonged to such an extent
that they support a broad expansion of the skin, so spread out
from side to side as to perform the office of a parachute, thus
enabling the creature to spring from tree to tree by means of
extended leaps ; and this it does with wonderful activity.

Many forms of Pterodactyl are known. Some were not larger
than a sparrow; others about the size of a woodcock ; yet others
much larger, the largest of all having a spread of wing (or rather
of the flying membranes) of twenty-five feet! It has been con-
cluded that they could perch on trees, hang against perpendicular
surfaces, such as the edge of a cliff, stand firmly on the ground,
and probably crawl on all fours with wings folded. It may be
well at once to point out that the Pterodactyl had no ¢ve wings
like those of a bird, but a thin membrane similar to that of a bat,
only differently supported ; so it must be understood that, when

1 From the Greek—féevon, wing, and dacty/os, finger.

FLYING DRAGONS. 123

we use the word “ wing,” it is not in the scientific sense that we are
using it, but in the popular sense, just as we might speak of the wing
of a bat, although the bat has no true wing. Figs. 32, 33, 34, and 35
will give the reader some idea of the various forms presented
by the skeletons of Pterodactyls, or, as some authorities call them,
Pterosaurians (winged lizards). Great differences of opinion
have existed among palzontologists as to whether they are more
reptilian than bird-like, or even mammalian.

More than a hundred years ago, in 1784, Collini, who was
Director of the Elector-Palatine Museum at Mannheim, described
a skeleton which he regarded as that of an unknown marine animal.
It was a long-billed Pterodactyl from the famous lithographic
stone of Solenhofen in Bavaria. The specimen was figured in
the Memoirs of the Palatine Academy. Collini was able from this
specimen to make out the head, neck, small tail, left leg, and two
arms; but beyond that, he was at a loss. His conclusion was that
the skeleton belonged neither to a bat nor to a bird, and he
inquired whether it might not be an amphibian.

In 1809 this specimen came into Cuvier’s hands, who at once
perceived that it belonged to a reptile that could fly, and it was
he who proposed the name Pterodactyl. Until the oracle at
Paris was consulted, the greatest uncertainty prevailed, one
naturalist regarding it as a bird, another asa bat. Cuvier, with
his penetrating eye and patient investigation, combated these
theories, supported though they were by weighty authorities.
The principal key by means of which he solved the problem,
and detected the saurian relationship of the Pterodactyl, seems to
have been a certain bone belonging to the skull, known as the
quadrate bone. In his great work, Ossemens Fossiles, he says,
** Behold an animal which, in its osteology, from its teeth to the
end of its claws, offers all the characters of the saurians... .
But it was, at the same time, an animal provided with the means
of flight—which, when stationary, could not have made much use
of its anterior extremities, even if it did not keep them always

124 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

folded as birds keep their wings, which nevertheless might use its
small anterior fingers to suspend itself from the branches of
trees, but when at rest must have been ordinarily on its hind feet,
like the birds again ; and also, like them, must have carried its
neck sub-erect and curved backwards, so that its enormous head
should not interrupt its equilibrium.”

Pterodactylus macronyx, or, as it is now called, Dimorphodon
macronyx (Fig. 32), was about the size of a raven. It was
discovered in 1828 by the late Miss Mary Anning, the well-known
collector of fossils from the Liassic rocks that form the cliffs along
the coast of Dorsetshire, near Lyme-Regis. This important
specimen was figured and described by Dr. Buckland, in the

Fic. 32.—Skeleton of Dimorphodon macronyx. (After Owen.)

Transactions of the Geological Society. We suggested the specific
name macronyx on account of the great length of the claws.

This authority pointed out an unusual provision for giving
support and power of movement to the large head at the extremity
of a rather long neck, namely, the occurrence of fine long tendons
running parallel to the neck-vertebrze. This does not occur in
any modern lizards, whose necks are short, and require no such
aid to support the head. ‘They are a compensation for weakness
that would otherwise arise from the elongation of the neck, sup-
porting, as it did, such a large head. ‘The neck-vertebree in this
species are large and strong, and capable of great flexibility
forwards and backwards, so that the creature, by bending its neck
during flight into the shape of an S, could throw its head back
towards the centre of gravity. The restoration of the skeleton

FLYING DRAGONS. 125

seen in the figure is by Professor Owen. It is probable that this
Pterodactyl could walk on the ground with its wings folded, and
perhaps it was also capable of perching on trees, by clinging on
to their branches with its feet and toes. When the flying mem-
brane was stretched out it must, on account of the long tail to
which it was also attached, have presented a triangular shape,
somewhat like a boy’s kite.

Another genus, also from the lithographic slate of Bavaria,
namely, Scaphognathus crassirostris (so called on account of
its large beak and jaws), had a very short tail, and its skeleton

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Fic. 33.—Skeleton of Scaphognathus crassirostris. 4} natural size.

looks somewhat clumsy for a creature adapted to fly through
the air (Fig. 33). |
Pterodactylus spectabilis, from the same strata, also possessed
a very short tail, but has a more elegant and bird-like skull.
This pretty little flymg dragon was only about as large as a
sparrow (see Fig. 34). Its neck is comparatively short, with but
few joints. The long slender beak was probably sheathed in

126 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

horn, and the skull in several ways approaches that of a bird.
Since there are no teeth in the jaws, we may suppose that it
devoured dragon-flies or other insects, such as we know were in
existence during the period when the lithographic stone of
Bavaria was being deposited. Those forms that were provided
with teeth probably devoured such fishes as they could catch by
swooping down upon the surface of the water.

Cuvier thought, from the magnitude of their eyes, that Ptero-
dactyls were of nocturnal habits. ‘‘ With flocks of such creatures

Fic. 34.—Skeleton of Pteredactylus spectabilis.

flying in the air, and shoals of no less monstrous Ichthyosauri
and Plesiosauri swarming in the ocean, and gigantic crocodiles and
tortoises crawling on the shores of the primzeval lakes and rivers
—air, sea, and land must have been strangely tenanted in these
early periods of our infant world.” ?

? Buckland, Sridgewater Treatise.

FLYING DRAGONS. 127

It was thought at one time that Birds differed from Pterodactyls
in the absence of teeth; but this only holds good for modern
birds. If we go back to the Mesozoic age, we find that birds
at that time did possess teeth. The oldest known bird, the
Archeopteryx, had teeth in its jaws, and presents some very
striking points of resemblance to reptiles. But if we compare the
skeleton of a Pterodactyl (such as the P. spectabilis, now under
consideration) with that of a bird, we shall see in its fore limbs
certain very obvious differences. A bird never has more than
three fingers in its hand or wing (viz. the thumb and next two
digits), and the bones that support these fingers, corresponding to
the bones in the palm of a human hand, are joined together.
Neither of the bones corresponding to our fingers are much
elongated, and of these the longest is that which corresponds to
the thumb. But, on referring to the skeleton of our Pterodactyl,
we find that it has four fingers, three of which are fairly developed
and furnished with claws, while the outermost one is enormously
elongated, This is believed to correspond to the little finger of
the human hand, while the thumb seems to be represented by a
small bone seen at the wrist. It was this long outside finger
that chiefly served to support the flying membrane of the Ptero-
dactyl. For this and other reasons, we are forbidden to look
upon these creatures as relatives of birds. Again, all birds that
can fly possess a “ merrythought,” or furculum ; and such is not
found in the Pterodactyl.

As we have already remarked, some authorities, when these
creatures were first brought to light, considered them to be
mammals, as bats are. But equally conclusive arguments may
be brought forward against that view. All mammals have the
skull jointed to the backbone by two articulations, known as
‘‘ condyles,” whereas Pterodactyls have only one—in that respect
resembling reptiles and birds,

Also there are important differences in the structure of their

jaws, showing that they are constructed on the reptilian plan, and
not on that of the mammal.

128 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

In order to give rapid movement to their wings during flight,
they had powerful muscles in the region of the chest. These
were attached to a shield-like breast-bone provided with a keel—
as in birds. But this bird-like feature is only a necessary pro-
vision to enable them to fly, and does not point to any relation-
ship.

In the year 1873 was discovered, in the lithographic stone of
Bavaria, at Eichstadt, a very beautiful new form of Pterodactyl.
This was the Rhamphorhynchus phyllurus. The specimen is in a
remarkable state of preservation; for the bones of the skeleton
are nearly all in position, while those of both wings show very
perfect impressions of the membranes attached to them. Its
long tail supported another small leaf-like membrane, which was
evidently used as a rudder in flight (see Fig. 35). The dis-

Fic. 35.—Skeleton of Rhamphorhynchus phyllurus, with delicate impressions of
the flying membranes. (After Marsh.)

covery of this valuable specimen attracted much attention at
the time. It was bought, by telegram, for Professor Marsh, and
so secured for the Yale College Museum; but a cast may be
seen at South Kensington (Wall-case, No. 1, Gallery IV. on plan).

Any one who looks carefully at the beautiful impressions of the
wings of this specimen can see that they must have been produced
by athin smooth membrane, very similar to that of bats. When

FLYING DRAGONS. 129

this elegant little creature was covered up by the fine soft mud

_that now forms the lithographic stone, its wings were partly
folded, so that the membranes were more or less contracted into
folds, like an umbrella only partly open. ‘These appear to have
been attached all along the arm and to the end of the long
finger. They then made a graceful curve backward to the hind
foot, and probably were continued beyond the latter so as to
join the tail, With its graceful pointed wings and long tail, this
little flying saurian must have been a beautiful object, as it
slowly mounted upwards from some cliff overlooking the Jurassic
seas. (See Plate XII.)

Like those already described, it was provided with four short-
clawed fingers, as well as the one which mainly supported its
wing. Some of the Continental museums contain good collec-
tions of fossil Pterodactyls; but the largest collection in the
world is that of Yale College, where Professor Marsh declares
there are the remains of six hundred individuals from the
American Cretaceous rocks alone !

Some of the fragmentary remains from our Cambridge Green-
sand formation indicate Pterodactyls of enormous size. Thus

Fic. 36.—Skuilof Prteranodon. 1. Sideview. 2. Top view. (After Marsh.)

the neck-vertebrae of one species measure two inches in length,
while portions of arm-bones are three inches broad. It is
probable that the creatures to which these bones once belonged
measured eighteen or twenty feet from tip to tip of the wings.
Other also fragmentary remains from the chalk of Kent testify to

K

130 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the existence of Pterodactyls during that period fully equal in
size.

But the largest Pterodactyls hail, like so many other big
things, from America. Professor Marsh tells us of monsters in
his famous collection with a spread of wings of twenty to twenty-
five feet! These large forms had no teeth in their jaws, and
their skulls are of a peculiar form. ‘The long-pointed jaws were
probably sheathed in horn during life, as in birds (see Fig. 36).
According to Marsh, these toothless forms (which he calls
Pteranodonts) were mostly of gigantic size. With regard to their
food it is almost vain to speculate; but if they dd prey upon
fishes, they must have had a capacious mouth and gullet, and
must have swallowed their prey whole, after the fashion of pelicans.
But we doubt if they had the peculiar pouch possessed by those
birds. In the absence of more complete accounts of the large
forms the artist has only attempted to restore the small ones.
(See Plate XII., showing four different kinds.)

Whether Pterodactyls were cold-blooded or warm-blooded is
a question on which the authorities are not agreed. Professor
Owen argued from the absence of feathers that they could
not have been warm-blooded. But, in spite of this great
authority, who has defended his opinion somewhat strongly,
there are others who argue that the amount of work involved in
sustaining a Pterodactyl in the air make it highly probable that
it was warm-blooded. ‘The absence of feathers to retain the heat
of the body need not be regarded as conclusive, for bats are
warm-blooded animals, and in their case the heat of the body is
retained by a slight downy covering to the skin. Such a covering
may have protected the bodies of Pterodactyls, and we could not
expect to see any trace of it in the Bavarian specimen of
Rhamphorhynchus referred to above. An important fact bearing
on this question is the discovery of perforations in the bones of
these animals very similar to those seen in birds. Now, birds
have a wonderful system of respiration, or breathing. ‘The air

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FLVING DRAGONS. 131

they breathe passes, not into their lungs only, but penetrates to
the remotest parts of their system, filling their very bones with
life, and endowing them with activity and animation adapted to
their active aérial existence. It may, therefore, be argued that
Pterodactyls breathed much in the same way; that their bones,
too, were supplied with air by an elaborate system of air-sacs,
and that they had lungs like those of birds. We cannot, how-
ever, stop there, but are led on by physiological reasoning to
conclude that the circulation of the blood must have been rapid,
and that the heart was like that of birds and mammals, four-
celled. It would therefore follow—since birds and mammals are
warm-blooded—that Pterodactyls were also. Such, at least, is
the view of Professor H. G. Seeley, who says of the Cambridge
specimens, ‘‘That they lived exclusively upon land and in air
is improbable, considering the circumstances under which their
remains are found, It is likely that they haunted the sea-shores,
and, while sometimes rowing themselves over the water with their
powerful wings, used the wing-membranes, as the bat does, to
enclose their prey, and bring it to the mouth.

“ The large Cambridge Pterodactyls probably pursued a more
substantial prey than dragon-flies. Their teeth are well suited
for fish, but probably fowl and small mammals, and even fruits,
made a variety in their food. As lord of the cliff, it may be
presumed to have taken toll of all animals that could be
conquered with tooth and nail. From its brain it might be re-
garded as an intelligentanimal. ‘The jaws present indications of
having been sheathed with a horny covering.”

Probably the large Pterodactyls of the Cretaceous period,
soaring like albatrosses and giant petrels over the surface of the
ocean, co-operated with the marine reptiles, such as Ichthyosaurs,
Plesiosaurs, crocodiles, and others, as those sea-birds now do with
the whales, porpoises, and dolphins, in reducing the excessive
numbers of the teeming tribes of fishes, and in maintaining the
balance of oceanic life.

132 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

With regard to the place of Pterodactyls in the animal kingdom,
Professor Seeley places them as a distinct sub-class, side by side
with birds, and between mammals and reptiles, thus—

Mammalia.
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The name Ornithosauria (bird-lizards) is frequently used
instead of the other name, because it expresses the idea of their
being partly saurian, and partly bird-like.

They flourished from the period of the Lias to that of the
Chalk ; and then, like so many other strange forms, seem to
have suddenly disappeared.

CHAPTER, ES

SEA-SERPENTS.

** Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep ;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream ;
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground ;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail, and bask in the brine.”
The Forsaken Merman.

Ir has been said that everything on earth has its double in the
water. Are there not water-beetles, water-scorpions, water-rats,
water-snakes, sea-lions, sea-horses, and a host of other living
things, whether plants or animals, bearing some sort of resem-
blance to others that live on land? Then why not sea-serpents ?
The great controversy of the sea-serpent, that has so often been
discussed in the newspapers, need not be considered here. We
are dealing not with the present, but with the past ; and whether
or no the wonderful sailors’ yarns of sea-serpents can be regarded
as authentic, even in a single case, we can offer our readers
infallible proof that, during the so-called ‘‘Age of Reptiles,”
certain monstrous saurian animals flourished in considerable
abundance, which, though not true serpents, nevertheless must
have borne a striking resemblance to such, as they cleaved he
waters of primzeval seas,?

1 See an interesting little work, entitled, Sea-Monsters Unmasked, by H.
Lee (Clowes and Sons). Appendix II. contains some extracts therefrom.

134 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

The modern evolutionist believes that snakes are descended
from lizards, possessing, as usual, four legs ; that some primitive
form of lizard with very small legs appeared on the scene, and
found that it could better move along by wriggling its body and
pushing with its ribs than by walking. So, in course of time,
a race of lizards without legs arose; these, by Natural Selection,
and perhaps other means, became more and more elongated,
so that they could move faster than their ancestors, and glide
out of harm’s way more effectually. Thus was the snake evolved
from a lizard.

Now, in the great geological museum of the stratified rocks,
there have been discovered skeletons of marine reptiles, which
propelled themselves chiefly by means of their tails and elongated
bodies, rather than by their hmbs. ‘The limbs were not discarded
entirely as in the case of the serpents, but were useful in their
way as the fins of fishes are. Perhaps, therefore, we may be
justified in calling these ancient monsters sea-serpents, in con-
sideration of their long thin bodies ; for they certainly would be
called by that name if now living.

Strictly speaking, they were not serpents, but more or less like
some of the extinct saurians described in chap. iv. The name,
however, has been adopted by geologists, and is useful in so far
as it serves to remind us of their very peculiar shape and
structure. Remains of these strange creatures have been found
both in Europe and America.

One of the earliest discoveries of remains of a fossil sea-
serpent was made by M. Hoffman, a Dutch military surgeon,
in the year 1770. Maestricht, a city in the interior of the
Netherlands, situated in the valley of the Meuse, stands on
certain strata of limestone and sandstone, belonging to the Upper
Chalk. Extensive quarries have, for many centuries, been worked
in the sandstone, especially in the eminence called St. Peter’s
Mount, which is a cape or headland between the Meuse and the
Jaar. This elevated plateau extends for some distance towards

SEA-SERPENTS. 135

Liége, and presents an almost perpendicular cliff towards the
Meuse. From the extensive works that have so long been carried
on, immense quantities of stone have been removed, and the
centre of the mountain is traversed by galleries, and hollowed by
vast excavations. Innumerable fossils, such as marine shells,
corals, crustaceans, bones and teeth of fishes, have been obtained
from this rock. But St. Peter's Mount is now chiefly cele-
brated for the discovery of the bones and teeth of a huge saurian,
to which Mr. Conybeare has given the name Mosasaurus, on
account of its connection with the river Meuse. M. Hoffman
had long been an assiduous collector of fossils from this neigh-
bourhood, and he had the good fortune to obtain the famous
specimen on which this genus is founded.

It was at first considered, by M. Faujas St. Fond, to be a
crocodile ; but Cuvier and Camper formed a different and better
conclusion. Perhaps no fossil ever had such aremarkable history
as this one, as the following account, from M. Faujas St. Fond’s
work on the fossils of St. Peter’s Mount,’ will show.

**Some workmen, on blasting the rock in one of the caverns of
the interior of the mountain, perceived, to their astonishment, the
jaws of a large animal attached to the roof of the chasm. The
discovery was immediately made known to M. Hoffman, who
repaired to the spot, and for weeks presided over the arduous
task of separating the mass of stone containing these remains
from the surrounding rock. His labours were rewarded by the
successful extrication of the specimen, which he conveyed in
triumph to his house. This extraordinary discovery, however,
soon became the subject of general conversation, and excited so
much interest, that the canon of the cathedral which stands on
the mountain resolved to claim the fossil, in right of being lord
of the manor; and succeeded, after a long and harassing lawsuit,
in obtaining this precious relic. It remained for years in his

1 Histoire Naturelle de la Montagne de St. Fierre. This account is given
by Dr. Mantell, in his Petrifactions and their Teaching, 1851.

136 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

possession, and Hoffman died without regaining his treasure, or
receiving any compensation. At length the French Revolution
broke out, and the armies of the Republic advanced to the gates
of Maestricht. ‘The town was bombarded ; but, at the suggestion
of the committee of savans who accompanied the French troops
to select their share of the plunder, the artillery was not suffered
to play on that part of the city in which the celebrated fossil was
known to be preserved. In the mean time, the Canon of St.
Peter’s, shrewdly suspecting the reason why such peculiar favour
was shown to his residence, removed the specimen, and con-
cealed it in a vault ; but when the city was taken, the French
authorities compelled him to give up his ill-gotten prize, which
was immediately transmitted to the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris,
where it still forms one of the most striking objects in that
magnificent collection.”

Dr. Mantell quotes the Frenchman’s remark on this transaction :
“ La Justice, quoique tardive, arrive enfin avec le temps :” but adds,
“The reader will probably think that, although the reverend
canon was justly despoiled of his ill-gotten treasure, the French
commissioners were but very equivocal representatives of
Justice!”

The beautiful cast (Fig. 37) at South Kensington (Fossil
Reptile Gallery, Wall-case 8) was presented to Dr. Mantell by
Baron Cuvier in 1825. It consists of both jaws, with numerous
teeth, and some other parts (see Fig. 38). The length is about four
and a half feet. This nearly perfect head was for a time a stumbling-
block to many naturalists, some of whom were of opinion that
it belonged to a whale. Cuvier and others considered it to be
a kind of link between the Iguanas and the Monitors.’

The entire backbone of the Maestricht animal appears to have

1 The Monitors are a family of large lizards inhabiting the warmer parts of
Africa and Asia. They live near the banks of rivers, and some are altogether
aquatic. They often devour the eggs of crocodiles and aquatic birds. The
Nile Monitor, or Varanus, grows to a length of six feet.

SEA-SERPENTS. 137

consisted of one hundred and thirty-one vertebree, of which ninety-
seven belonged to the tail. The total length of the skeleton is

Fic. 37.—Skull of Alosasaurus Hoffmanni. ‘The original is 43 ft. by 23 ft.

estimated at twenty-four feet, and the head was about one-sixth
of the total length. The tail is only ten feet long, whereas in a

Fic. 38.—Teeth of Mosasaurus (half natural size). 1%, 2%, transverse
sections of the teeth.
crocodile the tail exceeds the length of the body. Although in
his day the limbs of the Mosasaurus were imperfectly known,
Cuvier rightly considered them to be adapted for swimming, and,

138 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

with his usual foresight, concluded that this monster was a marine
reptile of great strength and activity, having a large tail flattened
vertically and capable of being moved from side to side with
such force and rapidity as to be a powerful organ of propulsion,
capable of stemming the most agitated waters. The large conical
recurved teeth, the largest of which was nearly three inches long,
are well seen in Figs. 37 and 38. Dr. Mantell was fortunate enough
to find, in the year 1820, some vertebra from the English Chalk
near Lewes, which were identified as belonging to a Mosasaurus.

In 1831 a portion of a lower jaw with large conical teeth was
discovered in the Chalk near Norwich. But these teeth were not
quite similar to those of the Maestricht specimen, and Professor
Owen therefore founded upon them the new genus Leiodon,*
But Leiodon must have been very similar to Mosasaurus.

——— =

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Fic. 39.—Lower tooth of Zeodon. 1. Side view. 2. Profile.

Of late years many fine specimens have been discovered in
North America, and the labours of Leidy, Marsh, and Cope have

1 Greek—Zeios, smooth, and odoxs, tooth.

SEA-SERPENTS. 139

been of the greatest service in completing our knowledge of this
strange group of saurians. In the American Cretaceous seas
they ruled supreme, as their numbers, size, and carnivorous habits
enabled them easily to vanquish all rivals. Probably some of
them were seventy-five feet in length, the smallest being ten or
twelve feet long. In the inland Cretaceous sea from which the
Rocky Mountains were beginning to emerge, these ancient sea-
serpents abounded; and many were entombed in its muddy
deposits. On one occasion, as Professor Marsh rode through a
valley washed out of this old ocean bed, he observed no less than
seven different skeletons of these monsters in sight at once!
The same authority mentions that the Museum of Yale Coilege
contains remains of not less than r4oo distinct individuals. In
some of these the skeleton is nearly if not quite complete; so
that every part of its structure can be determined with almost
absolute certainty.

According to Professor Cope of Pennsylvania University, who
has made a special study of this group of extinct saurians, fifty-
one species have been discovered in North America, in the States
of New Jersey, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Mississippi,
and Nebraska. The same authority has shown that they were
characterised by a wonderful elongation of form, especially of the
tail; that their heads were large, flat, and conical in shape, with
eyes directed partly upward ; that they were furnished with two
pairs of paddles like the flippers of a whale. With these flippers,
and the eel-like strokes of their flattened tail, they swam with
considerable speed. Like snakes, they were furnished with four
rows of formidable teeth on the roof of the mouth, which served
admirably for seizing their prey.

But the most remarkable feature in these creatures was the
arrangement for permitting them to swallow their prey whole, in
the manner of snakes. Thus each half of the lower jaw was
articulated at a point nearly midway between the ear and the
chin, so as to greatly widen the space between the jaws, and

140 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Professor Cope thinks that the throat must consequently have
been loose and baggy.

Professor Cope, however, in giving the name Pythonomorpha
to this ancient group, has pressed his views too far, and dwelt
unduly on their supposed relationship with serpents. Other
authorities regard them as essentially swimming lizards, with four
well-developed paddles; and this is probably the right view to
take of them.

The following graphic account of the region where Professor
Cope has discovered the skeletons of many sea-serpents, and of
their habits and aspect when alive, is taken from his well-known
work on the Cretaceous Vertebrata of the West.’ After describing
this region as a vast level tract between the Missouri and the
Rocky Mountains, he says, “If the explorer searches the
bottoms of the rain-washes and ravines, he will doubtless come
upon the fragment of a tooth or jaw, and will generally find a
line of such pieces leading to an elevated position on the bank or
bluff, where lies the skeleton of some monster of the ancient sea.
He may find the vertebral column running far into the limestone
that locks him in his last prison; or a paddle extended on the
slope, as though entreating aid; or a pair of jaws lined with
horrid teeth, which grin despair on enemies they are helpless to
resist ; or he may find a conic mound, on whose apex glisten in
the sun the bleached bones of one whose last office has been to
preserve from destruction the friendly soil on which he reposed.
Sometimes a pile of huge remains will be discovered, which the
dissolution of the rock has deposited on the lower level; the
force of rain and wash having been insufficient to carry them
away.”

But the reader inquires, “What is the nature of these
creatures thus left stranded a thousand miles from either ocean ?
How came they in the limestone of Kansas, and were they

1 Report of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the
Territories, vol. ii., 1875 (Cretaceous Vertebrata).

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denizens of land?” ‘These creatures lived in the Cretaceous
period. The remains found in this region were mostly those of
reptiles and fishes. Thirty-five species of reptiles are known
from Kansas alone, representing six orders, and varying in
length from ten to eighty feet. One was terrestrial, four were
fliers, the rest inhabited the ocean. ‘‘When they swam over
what are now the plains, the coast-line extended from Arkansas
to near Fort Riley, on the Kansas River, and, passing a little east-
ward, traversed Minnesota to the British possessions, near the head
of Lake Superior. The extent of sea to the westward was vast,
and geology has not yet laid down its boundary ; it was probably
a shore now submerged beneath the waters of the North Pacific.”

Other very elongated marine reptiles of this period, but with
much thicker bodies, are called, by Professor Cope, Elasmosaurs.
In this group, which is not yet fully worked out, occur such
genera as Cimoliosaurus, Polycotylus, Polyptychodon, and others.
But it seems a pity that they should be in any way separated
from the Plesiosaurs, which they strongly resemble (see chap. iv.,
Plate III.). Though not sea-serpents, we have introduced them
here because they flourished at the same time, and lived in the
same seas with the Mosasaurs and other forms of that group. The
very large teeth, with strongly marked ridges, of the Polyptychodon
are abundant in the Cambridge Greensand that underlies the
chalk, and represent a very huge animal.

In our illustration, Plate XIII, the artist has represented
the Elasmosaurus’ (of Cope) with its long thin neck stretched
out in search of food on the bed of the sea. Professor Cope—
thus describing this monster, in language which seems some-
what fanciful—says, ‘“ Far out on the expanse of this ancient
sea might have been seen a huge snake-like form, which rose
above the surface, and stood erect, with tapering throat and
arrow-shaped head, or swayed about, describing a circle of

' Greek—e/asmos, plate ; sauros, lizard : probably on account of the shape
of the paddles.

142 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

twenty feet radius above the water. Then plunging into the
depths, naught wouid be visible but the foam caused by the dis-
appearing mass of life. Should several have appeared together,
we can easily imagine tall, flexible forms rising to the height of the
masts of a fishing-fleet, or like snakes twisting and knotting them-
selves together. This extraordinary neck—for such it was—rose
from a body of elephantine proportions. The limbs were
probably two pairs of paddles, like those of Plesiosaurus, from
which this diver chiefly differed in the arrangement of the bones
of the breast. In the best-known species twenty-two feet
represent the neck in a total length of fifty feet. This is Elas-
mosaurus platyurus (Cope), a carnivorous sea-reptile, no doubt
adapted for deeper waters than many of the others. Like the
snake-bird of Florida, it probably often swam many feet below the
surface, raising the head to the distant air for breath, then with-
drawing it, and exploring the depths forty feet below, without
altering the position of its body. From the localities in which
the bones have been found in Kansas, it must have wandered
far from land; and that many kinds of fishes formed its food
is shown by the teeth and scales found in the position of its
stomach.”

But to return to the sea-serpents. Mosasaurus is now known
to have been a long slender reptile, with a pair of powerful
/paddles in front, a moderately long neck, and flat pointed head.
The tail was very long—flat and deep—like that of a great eel.
Mosasaurus princeps is computed to have been seventy-five to
eighty feet long. Clidastes was another genus of long and slender
shape, one species of which reached a length of forty feet. Some
forms of sea-serpent had sclerotic plates in the eye, such as we
found in the fish-lizard, or Ichthyosaurus (p. 46), but the
announcement that their bodies were protected by bony plates
has turned out to be a mistake, and the supposed plates really
belonged to the eye.

Leiodon proriger (Cope) was abundant in the old North

SEA-SERPENTS. 143

American Cretaceous sea, and reached a length of seventy-five
feet. It had along projecting muzzle, somewhat like the snout
of a sturgeon. Platecarpus and Tylosaurus had peculiarly sharp-
pointed heads (see Fig. 40).

Fic. 40.—Snout of Tylosaurus. (After Marsh.)

A few words may be added here with regard to Professor
Cope’s important discovery of Leiodon—a genus already alluded
to as having been founded by Sir Richard Owen. ‘The type
specimen of Leiodon dyseplor,’ which first indicated the characters
of this wonderful species, was obtained from the yellow beds of
the Niobrara epoch of the Jornada del Muerto, near Fort McRae,
New Mexico. The greater part of the remains have been
described by Professor Leidy. But a second specimen, more
complete in all respects, was discovered by Professor Cope’s
exploring party during an expedition from Fort Wallace, Kansas,
in 1871. ‘This specimen he has fully described and figured in
the report already referred to (p. 140). It is a very instructive
specimen, including fifty of the vertebre from all parts of the
vertebral column, a large part of the cranium, with teeth, as well
as important limb-bones. ‘These precious relics were excavated
from a chalk “‘ bluff,” or high bank. Fragments of the jaws were
seen lying on the slope, and other portions entered the shale. On
being followed, a part of the skull was taken from beneath the
roots of a bush, and the vertebrze and limb-bones were found
farther in. The series of vertebre, after extending some way
along the face of the bluff, finally turned into the hill, and were

? We retain the old spelling with the e as being nearer to the Greek,
although Professor Cope writes it ‘* Liodon.”

144 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

followed as far as time would permit, but part of the tail series
had to be left. In size, the vertebrze of this enormous sea-serpent
exceed those of Mosasaurus brumbyi. ‘The latter has hitherto
been the largest known species of the order of Pythonomorphs,
exceeding twofold in its measurements the M. giganteus of
Belgium. So the present reptile is much larger in its dimensions
than the New Jersey species called maximus by Professor Cope.
“Tf, as appears certain,” says the professor, ‘‘ the Mosasauroid
discovered by Webb measures seventy-five feet in length, and the
M. maximus measured eighty, the Leiodon dyspelor must have
been the longest reptile known, and approaches very nearly the
extreme of the mammalian growth seen in the whales, though, of
course, without their bulk. Such monsters may well excite our
surprise, as well as our curiosity, in the inquiry as to their source
of food-supply, and what the character of those contemporary
animals preserved in the same geologic horizon.”

In our illustration, Plate XIII., the artist has endeavoured to
realise the outward aspect of the two genera of sea-serpents,
Mosasaurus and Clidastes. The fishes which they are pursuing
are well-known genera from the English Chalk, such as Beryx.

Ten species of Clidastes have been unearthed from the Kansas
strata. They did not reach such a size as the Leiodons, but
were of elegant and flexible build, the largest species, C.
cineriarum, reaching a length of forty feet (see Fig. 41). A
smaller species, of elegant proportions, has been called C. tortor
(Cope). Its slenderness of body was remarkable, and the large
head was long and lance-shaped. Its lithe movements doubtless
helped it to secure many fishes. It was found coiled up
beneath a ledge of rock, with its skull lying undisturbed in the
centre.

The accounts given by Professor Cope of his explorations and
the difficulties encountered in procuring the valuable specimens on
which his conclusions are based, are most interesting, and such as

SHA-SERPENTS.

every fossil-hunter will appreciate. We, in England,
who visit clay pits, stone quarries, railway cuttings, etc.,
during a morning or an afternoon walk, and return
home at our leisure with a few small specimens in our
pockets, or in a bag at our back, can hardly realise how
arduous must be the work of finding, digging out, and
transporting for such long distances the remains of
the monsters of Kansas and other parts of North
America.

The following extracts have been selected from
Professor Cope’s report, with a view to illustrating
the nature of the explorations undertaken. ‘‘The
circumstances attending the discovery of one of these
will always be a pleasant recollection to the writer. A
part of the face, with teeth, was observed projecting
from the side of a bluff by a companion in exploration,
Lieutenant James H. Whitten, United States Army, and
we at once proceeded to follow up the indication with
knives and picks. Soon the lower jaws were uncovered,
with their glistening teeth, and then the vertebre and
ribs. Our delight was at its height when the bones of
the pelvis and part of the hind limb were laid bare,
for they had never been seen before in the species,
and scarcely in the order. While lying on the bottom
of the Cretaceous sea, the carcase had been dragged

hither and thither by the sharks and other rapacious <

animals, and the parts of the skeleton were displaced
and gathered into a small area. The massive tail
stretched away into the bluff, and, after much laborious
excavation, we left a portion of it to more persevering
explorers.”

‘““The discovery of a related species, Platecarpus
corypheus (Cope), was made by the writer under
circumstances of difficulty peculiar to the plains.

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(After Cope.)

146 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

After examining the bluffs for half a day without result, a few
bone fragments were found in a wash above their base. Others
led the way to a ledge forty or fifty feet from both summit
and foot, where, stretched along in the yellow chalk, lay the
projecting portions of the whole monster. A considerable
number of vertebree were found preserved by the protective
embrace of the roots of a small bush, and, when they were
secured, the pick and knife were brought into requisition to
remove the remainder. About this time, one of the gales, so
common in that region, sprang up, and striking the bluff fairly,
reflected itself upwards. So soon as the pick pulverised the rock,
the limestone dust was carried into eyes, nose, and every available

Fic. 41a.—Skull of Platecarpus. Upper Cretaceous. North America.
(After Cope.)

opening in the clothing. I was speedily blinded, and my aid
disappeared in the canon, and was seen no more while the work
lasted. A handkerchief tied over the face, and pierced by
minute holes opposite the eyes, kept me from total blindness,
though dirt in abundance penetrated the mask. But a fine relic
of Creative Genius was extracted from its ancient bed, and one
that leads its genus in size, and explains its structure.”

“Qn another occasion, riding along a spur of yellow chalk
bluff, some vertebrz lying at its foot met my eye. An examina-
tion showed that the series entered the rock, and, on passing
round to the opposite side, the jaws and muzzle were seen pro-
jecting from it, as though laid bare for the convenience of the

SHA-SERPENTS. 147

geologist. The spur was small and of soft material, and we
speedily removed it in blocks, to the level of the reptile, and
took out the remains as they lay across the base from side to
side.”

In taking leave of the “Age of Reptiles,” we cannot but
marvel greatly at the diversity of forms assumed by the various
orders of this class, their strange uncouth appearance, their
assumption, in some cases, of characters only known at the
present day among the mammals, their great abundance, and the
perfect state in which their remains have been preserved in
the stratified rocks of various parts of the world. And the
reader may naturally ask, ‘‘ How is it that so many types have
disappeared altogether, leaving us out of a total of at least nine
orders, only four, viz. those represented by crocodiles, lizards,
snakes, and turtles?” ‘To such a question we can only answer
that the causes of the extinction of plants and animals in the
past are not yet known. Climate, geographical conditions, food-
supply, competition, with other causes, doubtless operated then as
now; but if there is one clear lesson taught by the record of the
rocks, it is this—that there has been at work from the earliest
periods a Law of Progress, so that higher types, coming in at
certain stages, have ousted the lower types, sometimes only
partially, sometimes completely. But why the Dinosaurs, for
instance, perished entirely, while the crocodiles survived to the
present day, no one can yet explain. We can see no reason,
however, why such problems as these should not be solved in the
future by the co-operating labours of naturalists and geologists.

In the great onward and upward struggle for existence, higher
types have supplanted lower ones; and, in accordance with this
biological truth, we find that in the next era (known as the
Tertiary or Cainozoic) the mammal held the field while the
reptile took a subordinate place.

CHAPTER X,

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS.

** Geology, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects of which it treats,
ranks next to Astronomy in the scale of the Sciences.”—Sir JOHN F. W.
HERSCHEL.

WirtH the advent of the Cainozoic or Tertiary era, we enter
upon the “ Age of Mammals,” when great quadrupeds suddenly
came upon the scene. The place of the reptile was now taken
by the mammal. In the long previous era this higher type of
life was not altogether wanting, but as far as the geological record
is yet known, it appears only to have been represented by a few
primitive little creatures, probably Marsupials, whose jaw-bones
have been discovered in the New Red Sandstone, and the Stones-
field Oolite.?

Geology tells of a great gap between the highest rocks of the
Cretaceous period and the lowest group of the succeeding Eocene
period (see Table of Strata, Appendix I.). This gap, or break,
testifies to a very long interval of time during which important geo-
graphical and other changes took place; and consequently we find
in Eocene rocks (at the base of the Cainozoic series) a very different
fauna and flora to that which is preserved in the Chalk formation.

The researches of Cuvier among the fossils collected from
Eocene rocks in the neighbourhood of Paris, especially the

! The English Cretaceous rocks, previously thought to be destitute of

mammalian remains, have quite recently yielded teeth belonging to some
small mammal. These were found in Wealden strata.

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 149

Gypseous series of Montmartre, revealed the existence of a very
extensive fauna, especially of new types of mammals; and his
restoration of the Paleeotherium, a tapir-like animal, and other
forms, created a vast amount of interest, and greatly stimulated
the study of extinct animals, As we have already remarked, the
science of paleontology may be said to have been founded by
Cuvier (see Introduction, p. 5).

But now the scene shifts once more from Europe to the wilds
of the Far West. American geologists tell us that a long time
ago (during the Eocene period) there was a great tropical lake in
the Wyoming territory, on the borders of which roamed, amidst
luxuriant vegetation, a large number of strange and primitive
quadrupeds, together with many other forms of life. The most
wonderful group of animals that haunted the shores of this lake,
or series of lakes, was the Dinocerata so fully described by
Professor Marsh, in his exhaustive monograph.! The name
implies that they were terrible horned monsters, but whether
Nature provided them with true horns, like those of horned
cattle to-day, is at least open to doubt.

Fig. 42 shows the skeleton of one of these, namely, Tinoceras
ingens. Its length was about 12 feet without the tail. Its
weight, when alive, is calculated to have been six thousand
pounds, or about two tons and three quarters.

Plate XIV. is a restoration of the Tinoceras, made by our artist,
after much consideration and careful study of the valuable cast
exhibited in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington,
which was generously presented by Professor Marsh (Gallery I.
Case MM on plan). In planning this and other restorations, both
artist and author have received valuable assistance from Dr. Henry
Woodward, F.R.S., Keeper of the Geological Department of the
Museum, who is ever ready to help with his great knowledge
those who come to consult him.

1 The Dinocerata, a monograph by O. C. Marsh, United States Geological
Survey, vol. X.

150 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

There may be differences of opinion among palzontologists
as to the appearance presented by this formidable creature when
alive, and no doubt the nature of the skin must always be more
or less a matter of conjecture in such cases, but we venture to
hope that the restoration here given, based as it is upon Mr.
Smit’s thorough acquaintance with living animals and Professor
Marsh’s description, will meet with a favourable verdict.

Looking at the skeleton, one is struck with a certain resem-
blance to the rhinoceros on one hand, and to the elephant on the
other. ‘The legs are very elephantine, and the feet must have

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been covered with thick pads, but the body reminds one more of
the rhinoceros ; and yet, again, there is some suggestion of the
hippopotamus. The eye was small and deep set, as in the
rhinoceros. In the upper jaw the two canine teeth are developed
into dagger-shaped tusks, the use of which can only be con-
jectured. In the females these are but slightly developed.

It is quite clear, then, that we cannot place the Dinoceras
in any order of living mammals. It is what palzontologists call
a “generalised type ;” that is to say, it presents certain characters
seen in several groups of living quadrupeds, and not any of those

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SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 151

elaborated or highly developed parts which we see in such
animals to-day. Thus the proboscis of the elephant is a greatly
elongated nose; in other words, the elephant is highly “‘ special-
ised” in that direction, whereas our Dinoceras had no proboscis,
or only a very slight one.

Again, the six remarkable bony protuberances of the skull
served to some extent as horns, and probably were covered
with thick bosses of skin, and did not support true horns

Fic. 43.—Skull of Dinoceras mirabile. (After Marsh.)

like those of our modern oxen and other ruminants. Speaking
of these protuberances, Professor Marsh says, “‘ None of the
covering of these elevations, or horn-cores, has, of course, been
preserved ; yet a fortunate discovery may perhaps reveal their
nature by the form of a natural cast, as the eyeball of the
Oreodon is sometimes thus clearly indicated in the fine
Miocene matrix which envelops these animals.” It looks rather
as if we have here an early stage in the evolution of horns,

152 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

and it may be that in the course of subsequent ages such promi-
nences as those developed into true “horn cores,” such as sheep
or goats have, while the thick bosses of skin that covered them
slowly developed into the true horns that are attached to these
cores. If this is so, then we have here another instance of a
“generalised ” structure. Again, the limbs with their five toes
tell us at once that the creature’s place in Nature is outside of
those two great groups of modern ungulates, or hoofed quadru-
peds, the odd-toed and the even-toed, represented on the one
hand by the horse, rhinoceros, and tapir, on the other by the pig,
camel, deer, ox, and many other forms. Probably the two groups

Fic. 44.—Cast of brain-cavity of Dinoceras mtrabile. (After Marsh.)

had not at this early period branched off from the primitive
ungulate stock with five toes in each foot, of which the elephant
is a living descendant, and from which also the Dinoceras must
have come.

The limbs were strong and massive, but the brain was
remarkably small, so that our Dinoceras cannot be credited
with any high degree of intelligence: and here again we see
an absence of ‘‘specialisation” compared with the sagacious
elephant. Professor Marsh has taken casts of its brain-cavity
(see Fig. 44). These casts show that the brain was smaller (in
proportion to the size of the animal) than in any other mammal,
whether living or extinct—and even less than in some reptiles !

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 153

In fact, it was a decidedly reptilian kind of brain. Perhaps it
may seem hardly credible, but so small was the brain of Dino-
ceras mirabile, that it could have been pulled through the
apertures (neural canals) of all the neck vertebree! In certain
marsupials of the present day we find an approach to this kind
of brain. It seems to be an established fact, according to
Professor Marsh, that all the Eocene or earlier Tertiary mammals
had small brains. His researches among fossil mammals have
led him to the important conclusion that, as time went on, the
brains of mammals grew larger; and thus he has been able to
establish his law of brain-growth during the Tertiary period, a
law which appears to be plainly recorded in the fossil skulls of
succeeding races of ancient mammals. The importance of a
discovery such as this cannot fail to strike the imagination of
even the most unlearned in geology as being singularly suggestive
and instructive. It is not difficult to picture these dull, heavy,
slow-moving creatures haunting the forests and palm jungles
around the margin of the great Eocene lake, into the waters of
which their carcases from time to time found their way—perhaps
swept down by floods. No footprints have been discovered
as yet.

The Dinocerata were very abundant for a long time during the
middle of the Eocene period. The position of their remains
suggests that they lived together in herds, as cattle do now, and
they probably found an abundance of food in the shape of succu-
lent vegetation round the great lake. Geological evidence points
to their sudden extinction before the close of the Eocene period ;
but it is difficult to understand this. Professor Marsh thinks that
from their sluggish nature they were incapable of adapting them-
selves with sufficient rapidity and readiness to new conditions,
such as may have been brought about by geographical changes.
It must be admitted, however, that the geological record in this
region does not give evidence of any sudden change. Possibly
they may only have migrated to some other region, where their

154 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

remains have not yet been discovered, or where, for various
reasons, their skeletons were not preserved. In this Eocene
lake, where sediments went on being quietly deposited for a long
time, we have the most favourable conditions for the preserva-
tion of the different forms of life that flourished round its
borders.

In the museum at Yale College are collected the spoils of
numerous expeditions to the West, and the many tons of bones
lying there are believed to represent the remains of no less than
two hundred individuals of the Dinocerata. So perfectly have
these bones been preserved by Nature that, even if the creatures
had been living now, the material for studying their skeletons
could hardly be more complete. Professor Marsh recognises
three distinct types in_ this strange group of quadrupeds, on each
of which a genus has been founded. The first and oldest form is
the Uintatherium, which takes its name from the Uinta Mountains.
This, as might be expected, is the most primitive or least
specialised fuerm, and comes from lower strata. The most highly
developed or specialised form is the Tinoceras, and this is found
at the highest geological level or “‘horizon.”

Between these two extremes, and from an intermediate
horizon, comes the Dinoceras,! so that in tracing these animals
through the strata in which they occur the geologist finds that he
is following for a while the course of their evolution. Doubtless
there were many slight differences presented by the members of
this group, but at present it has not been found possible to
determine the number of species, although about thirty forms
more or less distinct have been recognised. Professor Marsh
says that the specimen of the skull of Dinoceras mirabile, on
which the whole order Dinocerata was founded, is, fortunately,
in a very perfect state of preservation, and that it belonged to a
fully adult animal. Moreover, it was embedded in so soft a

1 The Dinoceras of Marsh is the same form as Eobasileus of Cope. Uinta-
therium was discovered by Leidy.

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 155

matrix that the brain-cavity and the openings leading from it
could be worked out without difficulty. In removing the skull
from the rock, on the high and almost inaccessible cliff where it
was found, two or three important fragments were lost; but
Professor Marsh, after a laborious search, recovered them from
the bottom of a deep ravine, where they had been washed down
and covered up.

It is about twenty-two years since the wonderful forms of life
sealed up within these Eocene lake-deposits first became known
to science. Long before then, however, the wandering Indian
had been accustomed to seeing strange-looking skulls and
skeletons that peeped out upon him from the sides of canons and
hills, as the rocks that enclosed them crumbled away under the
influence of atmospheric agents of change the ceaseless working
of wind, rain, heat, and cold. To his untrained mind no other
explanation suggested itself than the idea that these were the
bones of his ancestors, which it would be highly impious to
disturb. Regutescant in pace! So he left them in peace.
Perhaps he believed in a former race of human giants; if so,
these would be their bones. Long before Professor Marsh’s
expeditions, the earliest squatters, trappers, and others used to
bring back news of marvellous monsters grinning from the ledges
of rock beneath which they camped. At last these tales attracted
the notice of some enthusiastic naturalists in the eastern States.
Professor Leidy obtained a number of bones, from which he was
able to bring to light an extinct creature at that time unknown
to science, namely, the Uintatherium. Professor Cope also
described some extinct animals disinterred by himself from the
same region.

But our knowledge of the Dinocerata is chiefly due to
Professor Marsh, who has despatched one expedition after
another, and who, after many years of laborious research both in
the western deserts and in his wonderful collection at Yale
College, has published a splendid monograph on the subject.

156 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

No trouble and no expense have been spared in order to obtain
material for this great work, and all geologists must feel grateful
to Professor Marsh for so liberally devoting his time and his
private resources in order to advance the science of Palzon-
tology.

The region in which the remains occur of the remarkable
group of extinct animals now under consideration, has a peculiar
scenery of its own, unlike anything in Europe. The following
graphic description of its features is from the pen of Sir Archibald
Geikie :—"*

“On the high plateau that lies to the west of the Rocky
Mountains, along the southern borders of the Wyoming territory,
the traveller moving westwards begins to enter on peculiar scenery.
Bare, treeless wastes of naked stone, rising here and there into
terraced ledges and strange tower-like prominences, or sinking
into hollows where the water gathers in salt or bitter pools.
Under the cloudless sky, and in the clear dry atmosphere, the
extraordinary colouring of these landscapes forms, perhaps, their
weirdest feature. Bars of deep red alternate with strips of
orange, now deepening into sombre browns, now blazing out
again into vermilion, with belts of lilac, buff, pale green, and
white. And everywhere the colours run in almost horizontal
bands, running across hollows and river-gorges for mile after
mile through this rocky desert. The parallel strips of colour
mark the strata that cover all this wide plateau country. They
are the tints characteristic of an enormous accumulation of
sedimentary rocks, that mark the site of a vast Eocene lake, or
succession of lakes, on what is now nearly the crest of the
continent.”

In this strange region the flat-topped hiils, table-lands, or
terraces, as they are variously named, seen from lower levels, are
usually called ‘buttes,” especially when they are of limited
extent. This name is of French origin, and signifies a bank of

1 Nature, vol. Xxxii. p. 97.

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 157

earth or rising ground. It is also applied in a limited sense to
the more prominent irregularities of the deeply sculptured slopes
of the largerterraces. These buttes, therefore, vary in extent, from
a mere mound rising slightly above the level of the plains to hills
of varied configuration reaching to the level of the broader buttes
or terraces.

The a@ébris resulting from the continual wearing away, or
demolition of these buttes and terraces, now lies spread out on
the plains below. From the lower plains the smaller terraces
appear like vast earth-work fortifications, and when not too much
cut up by erosion, remind one of long railway embankments.
But in many cases the terraces are so much cut up by narrow
ravines that they appear as great groups of naked buttes rising
from the midst of the plain. Nothing can be more desolate in
appearance than some of these vast assemblages of crumbling
buttes, destitute of vegetation, and traversed by ravines, in
which the watercourses in midsummer are almost all dried up.
To these assemblages of naked buttes, often worn into castellated
and fantastic forms, and extending through miles and miles of
territory, the early Canadian voyageurs gave the name Mauvais
Terres. They occur in many localities of the Tertiary formations
west of the Mississippi River. Professor Leidy, who with two
friends made an expedition in search of fossils to Dry Creek Cafton
in this region of the “ Bad Lands,” about forty miles to the south-
east of Fort Bridger (Wyoming), thus describes his impressions :—

“On descending the butte to the east of our camp, I found
before me another valley, a treeless barren plain, probably ten
miles in width. From the far side of this valley butte after butte
arose and grouped themselves along the horizon, and looked
together in the distance like the huge fortified city of a giant
race, the utter desolation of the scene, the dried-up watercourses,
the absence of any moving object, the profound silence which
prevailed, produced a feeling that was positively oppressive.
When I thought of the buttes beneath our feet, with their

158 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

entombed remains of multitudes of animals for ever extinct, and
reflected upon the time when the country teemed with life, I
truly felt that I was standing on the wreck of a former world.”

These old lake-basins, in which so many forms of life have
been sealed up, all lie between the Rocky Mountains on the
east, and the Wasatch Range on the west, or along the high
central plateau of the continent. As the mountains were slowly
elevated, part of the old sea of the Cretaceous period (that sea
in which the “sea-serpents” played so important a part) was
enclosed and cut off from the ocean. Rivers began to pour
their waters into it, so that the waters became less and less salt,
until at last a fresh-water lake, or series of lakes, was formed.
As the upward movement of this region continued these lakes
were all the while receiving sedimentary materials, such as sand
and mud, from the rivers, until finally they were filled up, but
not until the sediments had formed a mass of strata over a mile
in thickness. ‘Thus we see how favourable were the conditions
for a faithful record of Eocene life-history.

But another process was going on which helped to bring them
to an end ; for they were being slowly drained by the rivers that
flowed out of them, and these rivers kept on continually deepen-
ing their channels, so that we have dry land where the lakes
once were. Vow the region is over 6000 feet above the sea, and
probably more than one-half of these fresh-water deposits have
been washed away, mainly through the Colorado River. What
is left of the Eocene strata forms the “‘ Bad Lands.” ‘The same
geological action that has cut up and carved out this region into
buttes, cafons, cliffs, peaks, and columns of fantastic shapes, has
also brought to light the extinct animals preserved in the rocks,
much in the same way as an old burial-ground, if cut up by
intersecting trenches, might be made to yield up the bones of
those who for generations had been buried therein.

Professor Marsh first discovered remains of Dinocerata in
1870, while investigating this Eocene lake-basin, which had

SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 736

never before been explored. It was here, also, that he found the
wonderful series of fossil horses by means of which he has been
able to prove that our modern horse is descended from a small
quadruped with five toes, and to show the different stages in its
evolution. Here, also, were found old-fashioned types of car-
nivorous quadrupeds, of rodents, and of insectivorous creatures.
But reptiles as well as quadrupeds flourished on the borders
of the old lake, for the remains were found of crocodiles,
tortoises, lizards, and serpents ; its waters, too, were well stocked
with fish.

Everything here testifies to a long continuance of those con-
ditions under which plant and animal life can flourish, namely, a
warm, climate, plenty of food, and freedom from those physical
changes which, by altering the geographical features of a country,
bring so many important consequences in their train. The
geological record tells us that this happy state of things lasted
all through the Eocene period, and until the fresh-water lakes
had at last been drained away by their outflowing rivers.

In October, 1870, a later Eocene lake-basin was discovered by
the same exploring party, and this Professor Marsh calls the
Uinta basin, because it was situated south of the Uinta Moun-
tains. “In the attempt to explore it,” he says, ‘our party
endured much hardship, and also were exposed to serious danger,
since we had only a small escort of United States soldiers, and
the region visited was one of the favourite resorts of the Uinta-Utes.
These Indians were then, many of them, insolent and aggressive,
and since have been openly hostile, at one time massacring a large
body of Government troops sent against them. Two subsequent
attempts . . . to explore this region met with little success.”

This lower lake was of later (or upper) Eocene age, and the
extinct animals preserved in its ancient bed appear to resemble
more nearly those of the famous Paris basin, referred to in the
beginning of this chapter, than any yet discovered in America.
But the basin north of the Uinta Mountains, where alone the

160 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Dinocerata had been found, offered so inviting a field that, in the
spring of 1871, Professor Marsh began to explore it systematically.
He organised an expedition, with an escort of U.S. soldiers,
and the work continued during the whole season. In this way
a large collection was secured. Explorations were continued
in the spring of the following year, which resulted in the dis-
covery of the type specimen of the Dinoceras mirabile. Another
expedition was organised in 1873, also with an escort of soldiers,
and a great many specimens were collected. ‘These researches
were continued during 1874, and again in 1875, with good
results. Since then various small parties have been equipped
and sent out by Professor Marsh to collect in the same region of
the ‘ Bad Lands ;” and, finally, during the entire season of 1882,
the work was vigorously prosecuted under his direction, and
afterwards under the auspices of the United States Geological
Survey. This brief account of the difficulties and hardships
encountered by Professor Marsh and his companions, for which we
are indebted to his exhaustive monograph, will serve to give some
idea of the nature of those labours, undertaken in the cause of
Science, which he has brought to so successful an issue.

In the country east of the Rocky Mountains, including the
states of Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, and part of Colorado,
Professor Marsh has discovered the remains of yet another strange
group of large quadrupeds. The best known of these is Bron-
tops, of which the skeleton is seen in Fig. 45. These animals
lived after the Dinocerata, namely, in the Miocene period, and were
the largest American mammals of that period. ‘They constitute a
distinct family more nearly allied to the rhinoceros than to any
other living form. The skeleton on which Fig. 45 is founded was
the most complete of any yet discovered by Professor Marsh.
Portions of it were exhumed at different times, but it was first
found in 1874. Our artist has made the restoration seen in
Plate XV. from this skeleton, as figured by Professor Marsh.

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SOME AMERICAN MONSTERS. 161

This strange group of creatures flourished in great numbers on
the borders of an old lake of Miocene age. The Brontops was
a heavy massive animal, larger than any of the Dinocerata, with a
length of twelve feet, not including the tail, and a height of eight
feet. The limbs are shorter than those of the elephant, which it
nearly equalled in size. As in the tapir, there were four toes to the
front limbs, and three to the hind limbs. Its skull was of a peculiar
shape, shallow, and very large. ‘That of Brontops ingens is thirty-

aii qi H WH I Pr
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Fic. 45.—Skeleton of Froid robustus. (After Marsh.)

six Inches long, and twenty inches between the tips of the two
horns, or protuberances. ‘Fhe creature was probably provided
with an elongated, flexible nose, like that of the tapir, but not
longer, because the length of the neck shows that it could reach
the ground without the aid of a trunk such as the elephant’s. It
is doubtful if the two prominences on the front of the skull were
provided with horns, for, if directed forwards, they would interfere
with the anima! when grazing.

M

CHAPTER XI.
SOME INDIAN MONSTERS.

** What a glorious privilege it would be, could we live back—were it but
for an instant—into those ancient times when these extinct animals peopled
the earth! to see them all congregated together in one grand natural
menagerie—these mastodons and elephants, so numerous in species, toiling
their ponderous forms and trumpeting their march in countless herds through
the swamps and reedy forests !”—HuGH FALCONER.

Ir is a far cry back, against the sun’s path, from Wyoming and
the flanks of the Rocky Mountains to the sacred Himalayas—the
“abode of snow ”—of Northern India. But if the reader will follow
us to that country, we will endeavour to describe two or three out
of many strange and now lost forms of life brought to light from
the famous Sivalik Hills, on the southern border of the Himalayas
for the knowledge of which Science is greatly indebted to a
very distinguished palzontologist, the late Mr. Hugh Falconer.
Together with his friend Captain Cautley (afterwards Sir Proby
Cautley), he explored this region, and their joint arduous labours
show that it was at one time inhabited by a very large and varied
group of quadrupeds, together with many birds, reptiles, fishes,
mollusca, and crustaceans.

In this region there lived, throughout a considerable part of the
Tertiary period, elephants, of various species, whose skulls and
bones were found in great numbers; mastodons (a closely allied
form) ; and several species of hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and
horse: among ruminants, species of the camel, the ox, the

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 163

stag, and the antelope, together with a colossal creature unknown
before, the Sivatherium, which has never been found else-
where ; a huge tortoise, and various species of carnivora, rodents,
and apes.

With regard to the geography of the region, it appears that the
continent of India, at an early period of the Tertiary era, was
a large island, situated in a bight, or bay, formed by the Hima-
layas and the Hindo Koosh range. The valleys of the Ganges
and Indus formed a long estuary, into which the drainage of the
Himalayas poured its silt and alluvium. Later on, an upheaval
took place, converting these straits into the plains of India,
connecting them with the ancient island, and forming the existing
continent. The large and varied forms whose remains now lie
“sealed within the iron hills” then spread over the continent,
from the Irrawaddi to the mouths of the Indus, two thousand
miles; and north-west to the Jhelum, fifteen hundred miles.
After a long interval of repose, another great upheaval took place,
which threw up a strip of the plains of India, crumpled and ridged
it up to form the Sivalik Hills, and at the same time increased the
elevation of the Himalayas by many thousands of feet.

It would be easy to show that such events as these must have
been followed by changes in climate, for the climate of a region
depends largely on its physical features—the proportion of land
and water, the presence of hills and mountain ranges, and their
height ; and it is considered probable that the physical changes
above mentioned helped to bring about the extinction of this
most interesting and ancient fauna. Throughout the latter part
of the Tertiary era it is well known to geologists that the
climate of Europe was becoming gradually colder, until at last
a glacial period, or “Ice Age,” was experienced, during which
Northern Europe was subjected to an arctic climate, and the great
ice-sheet seems to have been slowly retiring and melting away in
the early part of the Stone Age. But in India there has been
no such decrease in temperature, and it enjoyed in Tertiary times

164 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

as warm a climate as it now has, so that both animal and vegetable
life continued to flourish vigorously.

By the Sivalik (or Sewalik) Hills is meant that range of lower
elevations which stretches along the south-west foot of the
Himalayas, for the greater portion of their extent from the Indus
to the Brahmapootra, where those rivers respectively debouche
from the hills into the plains of India. It extends for nearly
a thousand miles, and it appears to have been entirely built up of
alluvial dédvis, washed down from the Himalayas into that sea
which we have already referred to as having once separated the
plains of India from the great range now forming its northern
boundary. The strata thus formed were subsequently upheaved
to form the Sivalik Hills. Thus we see that one mountain range
may help to form another one running parallel to itself. The
name is derived from Siva, or Mahadeo, the Hindoo god; these
hills, as well as the Himalayas, being connected in Hindoo
mythology in various ways with the history of Siva.

Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley soon found that they had
“struck oil” in the Sivalik Hills, or, in other words, had come
upon one of Nature’s great graveyards, full of material most
valuable to the palaontologist—one which, extending for hundreds
of miles, might perhaps prove to be as rich in relics of the world’s
“lost creations” as the lake-basin in Wyoming, where Professor
Marsh discovered his Dinocerata and other extinct types.

Let us give Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley their due. They
found themselves suddenly confronted with a perfect mine of
wealth, in a far country, where the ordinary means resorted to
by men of science for determining extinct types and species, by
comparison with living forms, were not to be obtained, for there
were no libraries and no museums of comparative anatomy in
that remote quarter of India. But Dr. Falconer was not the man
to be baffled by such drawbacks, which would have deterred and
discouraged some men. He appealed to the living forms that
abounded in the surrounding forests, rivers, and swamps, and

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 165

took toll of them to supply the want. Nature herself became his
library and his museum. Skeletons of all kinds were prepared ;
the extinct forms he collected were compared with their nearest
living allies, and a valuable series of ‘‘ Memoirs” by himself and
Captain Cautley was the result.’

The Sivalik explorations soon attracted attention in Europe,
and in 1837 the Wollaston Medal, in duplicate, was awarded for
their discoveries to Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley by the
Geological Society, the fountain of geological honours in England ;
while the value of the distinction was enhanced by the terms
in which the President, Sir Charles Lyell, was pleased to an-
nounce the award. This is what he said: ‘“‘ When Captain Cautley
and Dr. Falconer first discovered these remarkable remains, their
curiosity was awakened, and they felt convinced of their great
scientific value ; but they were not versed in fossil osteology [the
study of bones], and, being stationed on the remote confines of
our Indian possessions, they were far distant from any living
authorities or books on comparative anatomy to which they could
refer. The manner in which they overcame these disadvantages,
and the enthusiasm with which they continued for years to prosecute
their researches, when thus isolated from the scientific world, are
truly admirable. Dr. Royle has permitted me to read a part
of their correspondence with him, when they were exploring the
Sivalik Mountains, and I can bear witness to their extraordinary
energy and perseverance. From time to time they earnestly
requested that Cuvier’s works might be sent out to them, and
expressed their disappointment when, from various accidents,
these volumes failed to arrive. The delay, perhaps, was fortu-
nate ; for, being thrown entirely upon their own resources, they
soon found a museum of comparative anatomy in the surrounding
plains, hills, and jungles, where they slew the wild tigers, buffaloes,
antelopes, and other Indian quadrupeds, of which they preserved

* These appeared in the Aszatic Researches, the Journal of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal, and in the Geological Transactions of the London Geological Society.

166 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the skeletons, besides obtaining specimens of all the reptiles which
inhabited that region. They were compelled to see and think for
themselves, while comparing and discriminating the different
recent and fossil bones, and reasoning on the laws of comparative
osteology, till at length they were fully prepared to appreciate the
lessons which they were taught by the works of Cuvier.”

In 1840 Captain Cautley presented his vast collection, the
result of ten years’ unremitting labour and great personal outlay,
to the British Museum, the Geological Society having declined to
accept it, as it was beyond their means of accommodation. Its
extent and value may be estimated from the fact that it filled 214
large chests, the average weight of each of which amounted to
4 cwt., and that the charges on its transmission to England alone,
which were defrayed by the Government of India, amounted to
4602. Dr. Falconer’s selected collection was divided between
the India House and the British Museum; the greater part was
presented to the former, but a large number of unique or choice
specimens, required to fill up blanks, were presented to the latter.
The greater part of the specimens in the British Museum were still
unarranged and embedded in their matrix. In 1844 a memorial
was presented to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East
India Company, pointing out the desirability of having the
specimens in the national collection prepared, arranged, and
displayed, and also of publishing an illustrated work, which
would convey to men of science in both hemispheres a knowledge
ot the contents of the Sivalik Hills, and suggesting Dr. Falconer
as the person most fitted to superintend the work. The Govern-
ment of the time, under Sir Robert Peel, made a grant of £rooo
to enable the collection to be exhibited in the British Museum,
and Dr. Falconer was entrusted with the work. Besides this, a
large illustrated work, entitled Fauna Antigua Sivalensis, was
begun, but owing to the demands upon Dr. Falconer’s time, and
his subsequent death, this work was not completed, although nine
out of the twelve parts originally contemplated were finished.

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 167

The great Indian collection of fossils, mainly the gift of Sir Proby
Cautley (the specimens of which, stupendous in their size, and in
fine preservation, were prepared, identified, and arranged by Dr.
Falconer), has long constituted one of the chief ornaments of the
collection at the British Museum—now removed to the Natural
History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington.

Other collections of fossils from the Sivalik Hills have been
presented to the Museum of Edinburgh University by Colonel
Colvin, and to the Oxford University by Mr. Walter Ewer.
When it is remembered that these collections have since been
increased tenfold, and that the remains were either excavated or
found in the débris of cliffs, and that the explored surface bears
a very small proportion to that which has not yet been investi-
gated, one may conceive how prodigious must have been the
number of animals that lived together in the former plains of
India, even when every allowance is made for the bones having
accumulated during many successive generations in the Sivalik
strata.

From this large and important collection we select two of
special interest for brief notice here, namely, the Sivatherium,!
and an immense tortoise known as the Colossochelys.

The first of these monsters was a remarkable form of animal,
unlike anything living. In size it surpassed the largest rhinoceros,
and was bigger than any living ruminant. Altogether, it was one
of the most remarkable forms of life yet detected in the more
recent strata. It had two pairs of horns on its head—two short
and quite simple ones in front, and two larger ones, more or less
expanded, behind them. From the character of these long horn-
cores, which are prolongations of the skull, it may be concluded
that the Sivatherium was a gigantic ruminant with four horns.
A cast of the original skull, with the horn-cores restored from
actual parts, in the collection and elsewhere, has been placed on
a stand in the centre of the long gallery of fossil vertebrates at

1 From Szva, the Hindoo god; and Greek, ¢herion, a beast.

168 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

South Kensington (Stand I) near to the case containing the skull
and other portions of the skeleton (see Fig. 46). There is
also hanging on the wall near, a clever painting by Berjeau,
representing the creature as it may have appeared when alive.
The entire skeleton, partly restored, is shown in Fig. 47, with a
conjectural outline of the body. A hornless skull of a nearly
allied animal from the same strata and locality is placed with that
of the Sivatherium, and was considered by Dr. Falconer and

Sxl
Fic. 46.—Skull of Sivatherium giganteum, from the Sivalik Hills,
Northern India.

others to be the skull of the hornless female (also represented as
such in the above picture referred to); but is now, by more recent
writers, regarded as a separate genus, viz. the Helladotherium, so
named because the remains were first discovered at Pikermi, near
Athens, Greece (ancient Hellas). (See Plate XVI.)

In the Sivatherium we have a new type which seems to
connect together two families at the present time well marked off

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SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 169

from each other, namely, the giraffe and the antelope. Its teeth
resemble those of the former animal, while in its four horns it
resembles a certain antelope (Antilope quadricornis), The head
in certain respects shows resemblances to that of the ox, but the
upper lip must have been prolonged into a short proboscis, or
trunk, like that of the tapir. The form and proportions of the
jaw agree closely with the corresponding parts of a buffalo. But
no known ruminant, fossil or existing, has a jaw of such large

Fic. 47.—Skeleton of Stvatherium giganteum.

size, the average dimensions being more than double those of a
buffalo. The skull is the best known part of the animal, but
Captain Cautley came across some of the bones of the limbs.

The Colossochelys atlas, or gigantic fossil tortoise of India,
supplies a fit representative of the tortoise which sustained the
elephant and the infant world in the fables of the Pythagorean
and Hindoo cosmogonies. It is highly interesting to trace back
to its probable source a matter of belief like this, so widely con-

1 Greek, Colossos, Colossus, and chelus, tortoise. Atlas was supposed to
sustain the world on his shoulders.

170 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

connected with the speculations of an early period of the
human race.
The carapace, or buckler, of the shell of this crawling monster

is similar in general form to the large land-tortoises of the present
1

day.* The shell is estimated to have been at least six feet long.

The limbs were probably similar to those of a modern land-
tortoise, and the limb-bones are of huge size—a single humerus, or
arm-bone, measuring 28 inches. Probably the foot was as large as
that of arhinoceros. A restored cast of a young individual stands
at the West end of the fossil reptile gallery, South Kensington
(Stand Z on plan). Length of the shield, ro feet? (see Fig. 48).
The first fossil remains of this colossal tortoise were discovered
by Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley in 1835, in the Tertiary
strata of the Sivalik Hills. At the period when it was living—
probably the Pliocene—there was great abundance and variety of
life on the scene, for its remains were found to be associated with

* Giant tortoises of the present day live on islands—where they have escaped
competition with large carnivora and other foes—such as the Aldabra group, N. W.
of Madagascar, in the Mascarenes, which comprise Mauritius and Rodriguez ;
and the Galapagos, or ‘‘ Tortoise Islands,” off the coast of South America.
When Mr. Darwin visited the latter islands he saw the relics, as it were, of a
family of huge tortoises, which lived there in abundance a few years before,
and was able to verify many interesting facts which had been recorded by Porter
in 1813, who stated that some of those captured by him weighed from 300 to
400 lbs., and that on one island they were 5% feet long. Those of one island
differed from those of another. Some had long necks. After Mr. Darwin’s
visit the process of extermination went on. At the present time it is most
probable that the gigantic tortoises are very rare where formerly they were so
abundant. One of these great tortoises is that of Abingdon Island, in the
Galapagos Archipelago, of which there is a fine stuffed specimen in the Natural
History Museum (Reptile Gallery). It has a very long neck, and a small flat-
topped head with a short snout. It weighed originally 201 Ibs. The Indian
tortoises of the present day are not of large size. See the fine specimens in
the Natural History Museum—Reptile Gallery (left wing of the building).

2 Dr. Falconer’s estimate was much too great, so that this model is too
Jarge. Mr. Lydekker prefers to drop the generic term Colossochelys, and
call it Testudo Atlas. In length it was only one-third greater than Testudo
elephantina of the Galapagos Islands.

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. 171

those of many great quadrupeds, such as the elephant, mastodon,
rhinoceros, horse, camel, giraffe, sivatherium, and many other
mammals. The Sivalik fauna also included a great number of

reptiles, such as crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.
The greater part of the remains of the Colossochelys atlas were

Fic. 48.—Restored figure of gigantic tortoise, Colossochelys atlas, from
the Sivalik Hills, Northern India.

collected during a period of eight or nine years, along a range of
about a hundred miles of hilly country. Consequently, they belong
to a large number of individuals, varying in size and age. They
were met with in crushed fragments, contained in upheaved
strata, which have undergone considerable disturbance, so that it

172 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

is improbable that an entire uncrushed specimen will ever be
found. When the first fragments, in huge shapeless masses, were
found by the discoverers, they were utterly at a loss what to make
of them, and for many months could do nothing more than
look upon them in bewildered and nearly hopeless admiration.
But no sooner was the clue found to a single specimen than
every fragment moved into its place so as to form a consistent
whole.

It is not possible at present to say, with any degree of certainty,
whether this colossal tortoise survived into the human period ;
but at least there is no evidence against the idea, and Dr.
Falconer shows it is quite possible that the frequent allusions
to a gigantic tortoise in Hindoo and other mythologies are to be
explained on the supposition that the creature was seen by the
men of a prehistoric age. . Other species of tortoises and turtles
that were coeval with the Colossochelys have lived on to the
present day. So have other reptiles, for some of the crocodiles
now living in India appear to be identical with the forms dug out
of the Sivalik Hills. In the absence of direct geological evidence,
we must fall back on traditions.

Now, there are traditions connected with the speculations of
nearly all Eastern nations with regard to the world (cosmogonies)
that refer to a tortoise of such gigantic size as to be associated
with the elephant, in their fables. The question therefore arises
—Was this tortoise a creature of the imagination, or was the idea
of it drawn from a living reality? Besides a tradition current
among the Iroquois Indians of North America, referring to the
important share which the tortoise had in the formation of the
earth, there are several cases in ancient history bearing on
the same point. Thus, we find in the Pythagorean doctrine
the infant world represented as having been placed on the back
of an elephant, which was sustained on a huge tortoise. Greek
and Hindoo mythologies were undoubtedly related to each other,
and accordingly we find, in the Hindoo accounts of the second

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. £73

Avatar of Vishnoo, that the ocean is said to have been churned
by means of the mountain placed on the back of the king of the
tortoises, and the serpent Asokee used as the churning-rope.
Again, Vishnoo was said to have assumed the form of the tortoise,
and to have sustained the created world on his back to make it
stable. This fable has taken such a firm hold of the Hindoos,
that to this day they believe the world rests on the back of
a tortoise (see Fig. 49). In the narratives of the feasts of
the bird-demigod, Garida, the tortoise again figures largely,

Fic. 49.—The elephant victorious over the tortoise, supporting the world,
and unfolding the mysteries of the Fauna Stvalensis. From a sketch in pencil
in one of Dr. Falconer’s note-books, by the late Professor Edward Forbes.

and Gurtda is said on one occasion to have appeased _ his
hunger at a certain lake where an elephant and a tortoise were
fighting.

These three instances, in each of which there is a distinct
reference to a gigantic form of tortoise, comparable in size with
the elephant, suggest the question whether we are to regard the
idea as a mere fiction of the imagination, like the Minotaur or
the Chimeera, or as founded on a living tortoise. Dr. Falconer
points out that it seems unlikely that such fables could have been

174 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

suggested by any of the small species of tortoises now living in
India, and consequently is inclined to think that the monster was
seen by man many centuries ago, long before he began to write
history. We have already alluded to the large number of
mammalian forms of life that were contemporary with the
Sivatherium and Colossochelys, but if we examine this old Sivalik
fauna we find it presents several very interesting features. In
the first place, it exhibits a wonderful richness and variety of
forms, compared to the living fauna of India. Take the pachy-
dermata, for instance—an old order established by Cuvier to
include the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephant, etc.—and we
find there were, in the period under consideration, about five
times the number of species now known in India. Elephants and
mastodons, too, of various species abounded. So it is with the
ruminants ; besides a large number of species allied to those now
living, such as the ox, buffalo, bison, deer, antelope, musk-deer,
and others, there were giraffes and camels, as well as the strange
Sivatherium. And so it is with the other orders, such as carnivora,
rodents, insectivora, etc.

Secondly, this great and varied fauna of the past shows
a striking resemblance to that of India at the present day.
Darwin found the same resemblance in South America ; and now
it is accepted as a general law, that the living fauna of a country
resembles its extinct fauna, especially that of the latest geological
period. Dr. Falconer found that India’s living fauna is but, as it
were, a remnant of that which it once possessed.

Thirdly, this extinct Sivalik fauna presents a singular mixture
of old and new forms. And lastly, it points to a very different
geographical distribution of animals. Thus the giraffe. the hippo-
potamus, and the ostrich are zow confined to Africa. Facts such
as these serve to throw light on the geography of the past; but
we cannot stay to enlarge on that subject here.

Much might be said about the fossil elephants and mastodons
from the Sivalik Hills, so fully described by Dr. Falconer, but since

SOME INDIAN MONSTERS. Ba

chapters xi. and xiv. deal with elephants, we must reserve
our remarks till then, only alluding here to one striking form
from the Sivalik Hills, namely, the Elephas ganesa, the tusks of
which were more than ten feet in length, and much less curved
than those of the mammoth. A very fine specimen of the head
and tusks may be seen in the gallery of fossil mammals in the
Natural History Museum (Gallery I, Stand D).

With the following eloquent passage from Dr. Falconer’s
“Memoirs,” we take leave of the remarkable Sivalik fauna, hoping
that future geologists will endeavour to follow his example and
bring to light yet other ‘‘lost creations” from that region, so
rich in fossils, yet comparatively unexplored. Would that the
English Government could see their way to follow the example
of the United States, and send out a scientific expedition to
explore this wonderful region! There can be no doubt that a
rich harvest lies waiting there to be reaped.

““What a glorious privilege it would be, could we live back—
were it but for an instant—into those ancient times when these
extinct animals peopled the earth! to see them all congregated
together in one grand natural menagerie—these mastodons and
elephants, so numerous in species, toiling their ponderous forms
and trumpeting their march in countless herds through the swamps
and reedy forests! to view the giant Sivatherium, armed in front
with four horns, spurning the timidity of his race, and, ruminant
though he be, proud in his strength, and bellowing his sturdy
career in defiance of all aggression! And then the graceful
giraffes, flitting their shadowy forms like spectres through the
trees, mixed with troops of large as well as pigmy horses, and
camels, antelopes, and deer! And then, last of all, by way of
contrast, to contemplate the colossus of the tortoise race, heaving
his unwieldy frame, and stamping his toilsome march along
plains which hardly look over strong to sustain him !

“‘ Assuredly it would be a heart-stirring sight to behold! But
although we may not actually enjoy the effect of the living

176 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

pageant, a still higher order of privilege is vouchsafed to us.
We have only to light the torch of philosophy, to seize the clue
of induction, and, like the Prophet Ezekiel in the vision, to pro-
ceed into the valley of death, when the graves open before us
and render forth their contents ; the dry and fragmented bones
run together, each bone to his bone; the sinews are laid over,
the flesh is brought on, the skin covers all, and the past existence
—1o the mina’s eye—starts again into being, decked out in all the
lineaments of life. ‘He who calls that which hath vanished
back again into being, enjoys a bliss like that of creating.’ Such
were the words of the philosophical Niebuhr, when attempting
to fill up the blanks in the fragmentary records of the ancient
Romans, whose period in relation to past time dates but as of
yesterday. How much more highly privileged, then, are we, who
can recall, as it were, the beings of countless remote ages, when
man was not yet dreamed of! not only this, but if we use
discreetly the lights which have been given to us, we may invoke
the spirit of the winds, and learn how ¢/ey were tempered to suit
the natures of these extinct beings.”

CHAPTERS Serr

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILLOS.

‘*“Tnjecta monstris terra dolet suis.”
HorRAcE, Odes, book: iil.

Ir would have been strange, considering how much we owe
to North America, had the great South American continent not
enriched our knowledge of past forms of life on the globe. But
such is not the case. The honours are, as it were, divided,
although it must be admitted that the North American extinct
forms at present known are far more numerous. There are,
however, two or three ‘‘ Extinct Monsters” of very great interest
which once had a home in South America—in that strange region
of the Pampas, where the naturalist of the present day finds so
much to excite his interest. Of these the present chapter treats.

The Megatherium ! (Cuvier) was a gigantic mammal allied to
sloths and ant-eaters, and perhaps to the armadillos. In its skull
and teeth this colossus of the past resembled the sloths, in its
limbs and backbone it resembled the ant-eaters, while in size it
surpassed the largest rhinoceros (Plate XVII.). The famous, but
imperfect, specimen at Madrid was for a long time the principal
if not the only source of information with regard to this extinct
genus, and for nearly a century it remained unique.

Later on, however, the zeal and energy of Sir Woodbine
Parish, his late Majesty’s chargé-d’ affaires at Buenos Ayres, greatly
helped to augment the materials for arriving at a just conclusion

' Greek—megas, great ; therion, beast.
N

178 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

with regard to its proper place in the animal kingdom. Accord-
ing to one writer, Spain formerly possessed considerable parts of
three different skeletons. The first and most complete is that
which is preserved in the royal cabinet at Madrid. This was sent
over in 1789, by the Marquis of Loreto, Viceroy of Buenos Ayres,
with a notice stating that it was found on the banks of the river
Luxan. In 1795 a second specimen arrived from Lima, and other
portions, probably not very considerable, were in the possession
of Father Fernando Scio, to whom they had been presented by a
lady from Paraguay. But two German doctors, Messrs. Pander
and D’Alton, who published in 1821 a beautiful monograph on
the subject, state that they were unable in 1818 to find any traces
of either the Lima specimen or that which had belonged to
Fernando Scio.

The remains collected by Sir Woodbine Parish were discovered
in the river Salado, which runs through the flat alluvial plains
(Pampas) to the south of the city of Buenos Ayres, after a suc-
cession of three unusually dry seasons, ‘‘ which lowered the waters
in an extraordinary degree, and exposed parts of the pelvis to
view as it stood upright in the bottom of the river.” ?

This and other parts having been carried to Buenos Ayres by
the country people, were placed at the disposal of Sir Woodbine
Parish by Don Hilario Sosa, the owner of the property on which
the bones were found. A further inquiry was instituted by Sir
Woodbine; and on his application, the governor granted assistance,
the result of which was the discovery of the remains of two other
skeletons on his Excellency’s properties, at no “great distance
from the place where the first had been found. It was in the
year 1832 that Sir Woodbine Parish sent his valuable collection
of bones from Buenos Ayres, and presented them to the Royal
College of Surgeons. ‘These specimens formed the subject of

1 «& Some Account of the Remains of the A/egatherium sent to England from
Buenos Ayres, by Woodbine Parish, Jun., Esq., F.R.S.,” by Wm, Clift, Esq.,
F.R.S., Geological Transactions, second series, vol. ili, p. 437.

CAST OF A SKELETON OF MEGATHERIUM AMERICANUM.
PLATE XVII. Set up in the Natural History Museum.

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILILOS. 179

Mr. Clift’s memoir above quoted. But even then the materials
were not complete for a thorough knowledge of the bony frame-
work of the Megatherium, and it was not till 1845, when more
remains (discovered near Luxan, 1837) reached this country, that
Professor Owen was able to clear up one or two doubtful details.
These were purchased by the trustees of the British Museum,
and casts of the bones were taken. Among the various writings
by learned men on the subject, Professor Owen’s masterly
description stands pre-eminent ; indeed, he was the only one to
solve the riddle, to thoroughly explain the structure of this
giant sloth, and to show how its food was obtained.’ Neither
Cuvier, nor the German doctors, nor Mr. Clift had succeeded in
so doing.

In the Natural History Museum (Stand O, Gallery No. 2 on
plan) is a cast representing the animal nearly erect, and grasping
a tree. This magnificent cast (see Plate XVII.) represents an
animal eighteen feet in length, and its bones are more massive
than those of the elephant. For instance, the thigh-bone is nearly
thrice the thickness of the same bone in the largest of existing
elephants, the circumference being equal to the entire length.
To a comparative anatomist several striking indications of great
strength present themselves ; thus, not only the very forms of the
bones themselves mean strength, but their surfaces, ridges, and
crests are everywhere made rough for the firm attachment of
powerful muscles and tendons. In the fore part of the body the
skeleton is comparatively slender, but the hind quarters show
enormous strength and weight combined. The tail, also, is very
powerful and massive. The fore limbs are long, and evidently
constructed for the exertion of great force. How this force was
applied we shall see presently. In both sets of limbs we notice

' His views are expounded in his Memoir on the Megatherium, or Giant
Ground Sloth of America, 1861, which is beautifully illustrated. The Royal
Society gave £100 (part of a Government grant of £1000) to enable Professor
Owen to carry out this important work.

180 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

powerful claws, such as might be used for scratching up the
ground near the roots of a tree, and it was at one time thought
that this was the way in which the creature obtained its leafy food,
namely, by digging up trees by the roots and then devouring the
leaves. But Professor Owen had another explanation.

As in the living sloths and armadillos (edentata 1), there are no
teeth in the fore part of the jaw. The molar teeth, of which there
are five on each side of the upper jaw, and four in the lower, are
hollow prismatic cylinders, straight, seven to nine inches long,
and implanted in deep sockets. There are no other teeth, but
these are composed of different substances, and so arranged that,
as the tooth wears, the surface always presents a pair of trans-
verse ridges, thus producing a dental apparatus well suited for
grinding up vegetable food. In the elephants, which live on
similar food, the grinding is effected by great molar teeth, which
are replaced by new ones as the old ones are worn away. In the
Megatherium, however, only ove set of teeth was provided; but
these, by constant upward growth, and continual addition of new
matter beneath, lasted as long as the animal lived, and never
needed to be renewed.

On looking at the model so skilfully set up at South Kensington,
and especially at the front part of the skull, it will be seen that
the snout and lips must have been somewhat elongated, possibly
into a slight proboscis like that of the tapir. The specimens of
the lower jaw in the wall-case close by show that it was much
prolonged and grooved. This fact must be interpreted to mean
that the creature possessed a long and powerful tongue, aided by
which it could, like the giraffe, strip off the small branches of the
trees which it had broken or bent down within its reach.

A bony shield (or carapace) of a great armadillo was found
with one of the specimens described by Mr. Clift, and Buckland
and others thought it belonged to the Megatherium; but Owen

1 This word, which means éooth/ess, is misleading. All the edentata, how-
ever, agree in having no front, or incisor, teeth.

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GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADIILOS. 181

afterwards showed, by most clear and convincing reasoning from
the skeleton, that the Megatherium could not have been pro-
tected as armadillos are, by such a shield (see p. 190).

And now we come to the question how it obtained its food.
The idea of digging round trees with its claws in order to uproot
them, must be partly, if not entirely, given up; for Professor
Owen has proved, by a masterly piece of reasoning, that this
cumbrous creature, instead of climbing up trees as modern sloths
do, actually pulled down the tree bodily, or broke it short off
above the ground by a “ows de force, and, in order to do so, sat up
on its huge haunches and tail as on a tripod, while it grasped the
trunk in its long powerful arms! Marvellous as this may seem,
it can be shown that every detail in its skeleton agrees with the
idea. Of course there would be limits to possibilities in this
direction, and the larger trees of the period must have been proof
against any such Samson-like attempts on the part of the Mega-
therium ; but when the trunk was too big, doubtless it pulled
down some of the lower branches. Plate XVIII. is a restoration,
by our artist, of the South Kensington skeleton.

Speaking of the extinct sloths of South America, Mr. Darwin
thus describes Professor Owen’s remarkable discovery: ‘The
habits of these Megatheroid animals were a complete puzzle to
naturalists until Professor Owen solved the problem with remark-
able ingenuity. Their teeth indicate by their simple structure
that these animals . . . lived on vegetable food, and probably
on the leaves and small twigs of trees ; their ponderous forms and
great strong curved claws seem so little adapted for locomotion,
that some eminent naturalists believed that, like sloths, to which
they are intimately related, they subsisted by climbing, back
downwards, on trees, and feeding on the leaves. It was a bold,
not to say preposterous, idea to conceive even antediluvian trees
with branches strong enough to bear animals as large as
elephants. Professor Owen, with far more probability, believes
that, instead of climbing on trees, they pulled the branches down

182 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

to them, and tore up the smaller ones by the roots, and so fed on
the leaves. ‘The colossal breadth and weight of their hinder
quarters, which can hardly be imagined without having been
seen, become, on this view, of obvious service instead of being
an encumbrance; their apparent clumsiness disappears. With
their great tails and huge heels firmly fixed like a tripod in the
ground, they could freely exert the full force of their most
powerful arms and great claws.” ?

To this we may add Dean Buckland’s description,? “ His
entire frame was an apparatus of colossal mechanism, adapted
exactly to the work it had to do; strong and ponderous in pro-
portion as this work was heavy, and calculated to be the vehicle
of life and enjoyment to a gigantic race of quadrupeds, which,
though they have ceased to be counted among the living inhabi-
tants of our planet, have, in their fossil bones, left behind them
imperishable monuments of the consummate skill with which they
were constructed. Each limb and fragment of a limb form co-
ordinate parts of a well-adjusted and perfect whole.”

After reading these descriptions, it is not difficult to form a
mental picture of the great beast laying siege to a tree, and to
conceive the massive frame of the Megatherium convulsed with
the mighty wrestling, every vibrating fibre reacting upon its bony
attachment with the force of a hundred giants; extraordinary
must be the strength and proportions of the tree if, when rocked
to and fro, to. right and left, in such an embrace, it can long
withstand the efforts of its assailant. It yields, the roots fly up,
the earth is scattered wide upon the surrounding foliage, and the
tree comes down with a thundering crash, cracking and snapping
the great boughs like glass. Then the coveted food is within
reach, and the giant reaps the reward of his Herculean labours.

Sir Woodbine Parish thought that the Megatherium fed on the
Agave, or American aloe.

Another form of extinct sloth found in the same region is the

1 Journal of Researches. * Bridgewater Treatise.

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILLOS. 183

o

Mylodon. ‘Though of smaller size, it was much bigger than any
living sloth, and attained a length of eleven feet. It has the same
general structure, but the head and jaws are somewhat different,
and more like the recent forms. A nearly perfect and original
skeleton of Mylodon gracilis has been set up beside its huge
relative’s cast in the same gallery at the Natural History Museum.
The crowns of its molar teeth are flat instead of being ridged ;
hence its name, which signified “ mill-toothed.”

Yet another was the Scelidotherium? with its long limbs.
Darwin obtained an almost entire skeleton of one of these. It
was as large as a polar bear. Speaking of his discovery, he says,
“‘The beds containing the fossil skeletons consist of stratified
gravel and reddish mud; a proof that the elevation of the land
has been inconsiderable since the great quadrupeds wandered
over the surrounding plains, and the external features of the
country were then very nearly the same as now. ‘The number of
the remains of these quadrupeds embedded in the vast estuary
deposits which form the Pampas and cover the granitic rocks of
Banda Oriental must be extraordinarily great. I believe a
straight line drawn in any direction through the country would
cut through some skeleton or bones. As far as I am aware, not
one of these animals perished, as was formerly supposed, in the’
marshes or muddy river-beds of the present land, but their bones
have been exposed by the streams intersecting the subaqueous
deposit in which they were originally embedded. We may con-
clude that the whole area of the Pampas is one wide sepulchre of
these extinct gigantic quadrupeds.” ?

The genus Scelidotherium comprises a number of species and
presents characters more or less intermediate between Mega-
therium and some other genera. ‘The skull is low and elongated,
and shows an approach to that of the modern ant-eater. The
feet also are different from those of Megatherium (see Fig. 50).

These monster sloths inhabited South America during the

1 Greek—scelis, limb ; therion, beast. 2 Journal of Researches.

184 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

latest geological period, known as the Pleistocene. During part
of that time North America, as well as Northern Europe and
Asia, were invaded by a great ice-sheet, and an arctic climate
prevailed. It is therefore very probable that while the mammoth
and the mastodon were roaming over North America, giant sloths
and armadillos were monarchs of the southern continent. What
cause, or causes, led to the extermination of the giant sloths and
armadillos is still a matter of speculation. One writer suggests
an explanation that seems to deserve consideration. The

southern parts of this great continent are even now subject to
long-continued droughts, sometimes lasting for three years in

Fic. 50.—Skeleton of Scelidotherium. (After Capellini.)

succession, and bringing great destruction to cattle. In fact,
the discoveries related above were rendered possible by several
successive dry seasons. It is argued that the upright position
of most of the skeletons found zz szfu seems to suggest that
the creatures must have been mired in adhesive mud sufficiently
firm to uphold the ponderous bones after the flesh had decayed.
A long drought would bring the creatures from the drained
and parched country to the rivers, reduced by want of rain to
slender streams running between extensive mud-banks ; and _ it
is possible that, in their anxious efforts to reach the water,
they may have only sunk deeper and deeper in the mud until

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILLOS. 185

they were engulfed. This idea is strengthened by information
supplied to Mr. Darwin when in these parts (recorded in his
Journal). An eye-witness told him that during the gvaz seco, or
great drought, the cattle in herds of thousands rushed into the
Parana, and, being exhausted by hunger and thirst, were unable
to crawl up the muddy banks, and so were drowned.

In the last great drought, from 1830 to 1832, it is probable
(according to calculations made) that the number of animals that
died was over one million and a half. The borders of all the
lakes and streamlets in the province were long afterwards white
with their bones.

In the year 1882 reports were published of the discovery of
large footprints—supposed to be human—in a certain sandstone
near Carson, Nevada, U.S. The locality was the yard of the State
prison, and the tracks were uncovered in quarrying stone for
building purposes. Many different kinds of tracks were found,
some of which were made by an animal allied to the elephant ;
some resembled those of the horse and deer; others seem to
have been made by a wolf, and yet others by large birds. Those
supposed to have been made by human giants were in six series,
each with alternate right and left tracks. The stride is from two
and a half to over three feet, and each footprint is about eighteen
inches long. Now, those who believed these tracks to be human
must have found it hard to explain how a giant with a foot some
eighteen inches long had a stride no longer than that of an
ordinary man of to-day, to say nothing of the fact that the straddle
was eighteen to nineteen inches! For these and other reasons
Professor Marsh has exploded the idea of their having been made
by men, and gave good reasons to show that they were probably
made by a giant sloth, such as the Mylodon above mentioned,
the remains of which have been discovered in the same strata.
They agree in size, in stride, and in width between the right and
left impressions, very closely with the tracks that a Mylodon
would have made, and it seems that those of the fore feet were

186 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

afterwards impressed by the hind feet, so that each track contains
two impressions.

The reader who has some knowledge of natural history will not
need to be told that the sloths of the present day, inhabiting the
same region as their gigantic ancestors, are of small size, and live
among the branches of the trees, together with the spider monkeys,
howlers, and other apes. An interesting question to the evolutionist
is—How did the change take place from the old huge and heavy
types to the smaller and agile types of the present day? Can it be
possible that the more difficult and tedious task of pulling down
branches and even stems of trees, in order to devour the leaves, was
abandoned for the simpler method of climbing up and feeding
among the branches? It certainly looks as if a change of this kind
had been instituted at some distant period in the past—distant,
that is, to ws, but not very remote geologically. The present
method seems so much simpler that we need not be surprised at its
adoption, for Nature is ever ready to encourage and assist those
among the children of Life which can hit upon and adopt new
and improved methods, either in obtaining food or repelling
enemies, or other duties imposed upon them. Now, suppose
that, in accordance with the well-known fact that variations in
the offspring of animals are constantly cropping up, some con-
siderably smaller variety of Megatherium, or Mylodon, or other
now extinct type, appeared on the scene, and, by virtue of its
comparative agility, could climb a tree and feed among the
branches instead of pulling them down: then, as Darwin has so
well explained, Nature would seize upon this accidental variation,
and give it an advantage over its more awkward relations. Its
offspring, too, would inherit the same characteristics, they would
adopt the same habits, and, in time, as “ natural selection” further
increased these characters, by weeding out those that were unfit
while fostering all those that were neither large nor clumsy in
climbing trees, a new race of sloths would arise. This new race,
it can well be imagined, would in time outstrip the old race in

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILLOS. 187

numbers, for successful races multiply while unsuccessful ones
diminish. Victory is not always to the great and the strong, for
cunning and quickness are often of more service than mere brute
strength; and perhaps the sloths, as we now see them in the
Brazilian forests, have hit upon “a new and original plan” by
means of which the old colossal forms described above have been
driven out of the field, and so exterminated by a process of com-
petition. Such an explanation would be in thorough harmony
with modern teaching, and, as the other suggestion about long-
continued droughts, given on p. 184, may not appear satisfactory to
some of our readers, we offer this theory for what it may be worth.

A few words about these modern sloths may not be out of
place; for we shall better understand how they have succeeded
in the struggle for existence when we know something of their
manner of life; and in some ways they still resemble their great
ancestors.

There are few animals which exhibit in a greater degree what
appears to the careless observer to be deformity than the sloth,
and none that have, on this account, been more maligned by
naturalists. Buffon, and many of the older zoologists, were
eloquent upon the supposed defects of the unfortunate sloth.
These writers gravely asserted that when the sloth ascends a tree,
for the purpose of feeding upon its leaves, it is so lazy that it will
not quit its station until every trace of verdure is devoured. Some
of them even went so far as to assert that when the sloth was
compelled, after thus stripping a tree, to look out for a fresh
supply of food, it would not take the trouble to descend the tree,
but just allowed itself to drop from a branch to the ground.
Even Cuvier, who ought to have known better, echoes this tale, and
insinuates that Nature, becoming weary of perfection, ‘‘ wished
to amuse herself by producing something imperfect and grotesque,”
when the sloths were formed ; and he proceeds, with great gravity,
to show the “inconvenience of organisation,” which, in his
opinion, rendered the sloths unfit for the enjoyment of life.

188 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

It is quite true that, on the ground, these animals are about
the most awkward creatures that can well be imagined. Their
fore legs are much longer than their hind ones ; all their toes are
terminated by very long curved claws, and the general structure
of the animal is such as to prevent them from walking in the
manner of an ordinary quadruped, for they are compelled to rest
on the sides of their hands and feet. Thus they appear the most
helpless of animals, and their only means of progression consists
in hooking their claws to some inequality in the ground, and thus
dragging their bodies painfully along. But in their natural home,
amongst the branches of trees, all these seeming disadvantages
vanish—nay, the very peculiarities of structure which render the
sloths objects of pity on the ground, are found to render them
admirably adapted to their peculiar mode of life. The sloth is a
small animal, rarely more than two feet in length, and covered
with woolly hair—probably a protection against snakes, its only
enemies. It spends nearly the whole of its life in the trees.
There, safe from the prowling animals on the ground below, it
hangs like a hammock from the bough, and even travels along
the branches with its body downwards, using its long claws like
grappling-irons.

It looks slothful enough when asleep, for then it resembles a
bunch of rough hair, and a jumble of limbs close together, hang-
ing to a branch; but when awake it is industrious in its search
for nice twigs and leaves, and moves along with considerable
activity. When the atmosphere is still, the sloth keeps to its
tree, feeding on the leaves and twigs, but when there is wind,
and the branches of neighbouring trees come in contact, the
opportunity is seized, and the animal moves along the forest under
the shady cover of the boughs. The Indians have a saying that
‘‘when the wind blows the sloth begins to crawl ;” and the reason
is quite evident, for they cannot jump, but can hang, swing, and
crawl suspended.

We now pass on to the old gigantic representative of the

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From Buenos Ayres.

Pirate XIX.

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADILILOS. 189

armadillo, the Glyptodon.' To the eye it resembles more or less
an armadillo, and has a huge cuirass, or large plate of armour,
covering the whole of the body, but allowing the head to show in
front, while the legs come out beneath. Both head and tail were
also protected with armour. The great shield, or carapace, in
most of the extinct armadillos, is composed of long plates of
regular shape, closely united at their edges (sutures) so as to form
a solid piece. It is evident, therefore, that this creature, having
no movable bands, as living armadillos have, could not roll itself
up into a ball. The fore feet have thick, short toes, instead of
long ones, such as their modern representatives have; and
from this we may infer that they were not in the habit of burrow-
ing or of seeking their food underground. The family of
Glyptodonts seem to have been chiefly confined to the continent
of South America, but some species are known to have extended
their range as far as Mexico, and Texas into North America. A
good deal of confusion has arisen with regard to the classification
of these old-fashioned armadillos, on account of the fact that
isolated specimens of their tails have often been found, and these
cannot always be referred to the right carapaces. For example,
it should be pointed out here that the tail represented in Fig. 51
really belongs to another genus, known as Hoplophorus.”

In Glyptodon asper (Plate XIX.), the scutes of the carapace
had a beautiful rosette-like sculpture, while the sheath of the tail
was entirely composed of a series of movable rings, ornamented
with large projecting tubercles. The vertebrae of the backbone
are almost entirely fused together into a long tube, and also are
joined to the under surface of the great shield, to which the ribs
are united, The cheek-teeth are sixteen in number, four above
and four below on each side. ‘These are channelled with two
broad and deep grooves, which divide the surface into three
distinct lobes. Hence the name of the animal.

2 So named by Sir R. Owen, in reference to the sculptured aspect of the

grinding surface of the teeth. Greek—glupho, I carve; odous, cdontos, tooth.
2 Greek—/Yoplon, armour ; phero, I bear.

T90 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

The tessellated carapace of the Glyptodon was at first thought
to belong to the Megatherium, with which the remains were
associated, but Professor Owen clearly demonstrated the im-
possibility of this idea.

Fig. 51 represents Glyptodon clavipes (Owen) from the Pleisto-
cene deposits of Buenos Ayres; but the reader will gain a much
better idea of the animal by inspecting the splendid specimen of
Glyptodon asper in the Natural History Museum, near the centre
window at the east end of the Pavilion (Glass-case Q on plan).

Plate XIX. is a restoration of another species by our artist.’

In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (which the
reader is recommended to visit) there are several most valuable
specimens of these extinct armadillos from South America.

Armadillos belong, with sloths and ant-eaters, to the same

Fic. 51.—Extinct Gigantic Armadillo, Glyptodon clavipfes, from Pleistocene
deposits, Buenos Ayres. (The tail sheath here represented probably
belongs to another genus, Hoplophorus. )

family of so-called toothless animals (edentata) with no front

teeth, though one or two forms really are toothless. ‘Those of the

present day have their bony armour divided up into a series of
bands, so that they can roll themselves up, more or less, into
balls. ‘They burrow under the ground, where they get their food
to a certain extent, and live a safe life, protected by their casque

? This plate is based on a beautiful drawing in a Spanish work, Anales del
Museo publico Buenos Aires. G. Burmeister, M.D., Phil.D. Tomo Segundo.

GIANT SLOTHS AND ARMADIILOS. Igt

of mail. Their only enemies seem to be the monkeys, and one
of the tricks of the young monkeys in the American forests is,
when they find an armadillo away from home, to pull its tail
unmercifully, and try to drag it about. Snakes cannot hurt them,
Mr. Hudson, in his most interesting book, A WVaturalist in La
flata, narrates how he watched an armadillo kill a snake and
then devour it.

If we examine the anatomy of the armadillo, we shall find that
its bones greatly resemble those of the sloth, but still there are a
few differences. It is a burrowing animal, and therefore requires
great power of scratching and tearing the ground. Why the
colossal forms of armadillo should have become extinct and only
small ones survived to the present time, is one of the many and
perplexing problems presented by the study of extinct animals.
One would have thought from its size and strength that the
Glyptodon had been built, like Rome, for eternity.

CHAPTER, Soni,

THE MAMMOTH.

**Yes, where the huntsman winds his matin horn,
And the couched hare beneath the covert trembles ;
Where shepherds tend their flocks, and grow their corn
Where fashion in our gay Parade assembles—
Wild horses, deer, and elephants have strayed,
Treading beneath their feet old Ocean’s races.’
HORACE SMITH.

?

Many are the traditions and tales that have clustered round
the Mammoth.’ He is, however, no fabulous product of the
imagination, like the dragon, for he has actually been seen in the
flesh, and not only seez, but eaten, both by men and animals !
But, for all that, men’s minds have been busy for centuries past
making up tales, often of the wildest description, about him; and
it is little wonder that a creature whose bones are found in the
soils and gravels, etc., over more than half the world, and whose
body has been seen frozen in Siberian ice, should have given rise
to many tales and superstitions. ‘To students of folk-lore these
legends are of considerable interest, and to some extent also to

1 The word Afammoth is thought by Pallas and Nordenksidld to be of
Tartar origin. The former asserts that the name originated in the word
mamma, which signifies earth (the Mammoth being found frozen in the earth).
Tt was introduced into the languages of Western Europe about two centuries
ago, from the Russian. But other writers have attempted to prove that it is a
corruption of the Arabic word Behemoth, or “great beast,” which in the Book
of Job signifies an unknown animal. In an ancient Chinese work, of the fifth

century before Christ, it is spoken of under the name éiev-schu, that is to say,
“the mouse which hides itself.”” The Chinese legends are referred to on p. 199.

THE MAMMOTH. 193

men of science. To the latter, however, one of its many points
of interest is that paleontology may be said to have been founded
on the Mammoth. Cuvier, the illustrious founder of the science
of organic remains, was enabled, by his accurate and minute
knowledge of the structures of living animals, to prove to his
astonished contemporaries that the Mammoth bones and teeth,
so plentifully discovered in Europe, were not such as could have
belonged to any living elephant, and consequently that there
must have existed, at some previous period in the world’s history,
an elephant of a different kind, and quite unknown to naturalists.
This was a new idea, and accordingly one that met with opposition
as well as incredulity.

It was thought in those days that whatever animals lived in the
past must have resembled those now inhabiting the world, and
the idea of extinct types unknown to man, and unknown to the
regions where their bones were found embedded below the soil,
was of so novel and startling a character as to appear incredible.
Besides, the Mosaic account of Creation made no direct reference
to extinct animals, and therefore the notion was not to be
entertained.

It is amusing to note the devices to which people resorted in
order to combat this revolutionary teaching. ‘Thus, when Cuvier
first announced the discovery of the fossil remains of the elephant,
hippopotamus, and rhinoceros in the superficial deposits of con-
tinental Europe, he was gravely reminded of the elephants intro-
duced into Italy by Pyrrhus in the Roman wars, and afterwards
in the Roman triumphal processions or the games at the Colosseum.

It was only by means of minute anatomical differences that he
was able to show that the bones and teeth of these elephants
must have belonged to a species unlike those now living. But
these differences proved too subtle for even scientific men to
appreciate, so slight was their knowledge of anatomy compared
with his; so that they were either disallowed or explained away.

But he was not to be beaten, and appealed to the fact that

)

194 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

similar remains occurred in Great Britain, whither neither Romans
nor others could have introduced such animals. ‘These are his
words: “If, passing across the German Ocean, we transport
ourselves into Britain, which in ancient history by its position
could not have received many living elephants besides that one
which Cesar brought thither, according to Polycenus; we shall,
nevertheless, find these fossils in as great abundance as on the
Continent.”

Another crushing answer to the absurd explanations of Cuvier’s
countrymen was added by the sagacious Dean Buckland, who
pointed out that in England, as on the Continent, the remains
of elephants are accompanied by the bones of the rhinoceros and
hippopotamus, animals which not even Roman armies could have
subdued or tamed! Owen also adds that the bones of fossil
elephants are found in Ireland, where Czesar’s army never set foot.

It was in 1796 that Cuvier announced that the teeth and bones
of the European fossil elephants were distinct in species from
both the African and the Indian elephant, the only two living
species (El. africanus and El. indicus). This fundamental fact
opened out to him new views about the creation of the world
and its inhabitants, and a rapid glance over other fossil bones in
his collection showed him the truth and the value of this great
idea (namely, the existence of extinct types), to which he con-
secrated the rest of his life. Thus paleontology may be said to
have been founded on the Mammoth.

The fossil remains of elephants have, on account of their
common occurrence in various parts of the world, attracted
a great deal of attention, both from the learned and_ the
unlearned. In the North of Europe they have been found in
Ireland, in Germany ; in Central Europe, in Poland, Middle and
South Russia, Greece, Spain, Italy; also in Africa, and over a
large part of Asia. In the New World they have been found
abundantly in North America. But in the frozen regions of
Siberia its tusks, teeth, and bones are met with in very great

THE MAMMOTH. 195

abundance. According to Pallas, the great Russian savant, there
is not in the whole of Asiatic Russia, from the Don to the
extremity of the Tchutchian promontory, any brook or river on
the banks of which some bones of elephants and other animals
foreign to these regions have not been found. The primeval
elephants (Mammoth, Mastodon, etc.) appear to have formerly
ranged over the whole northern hemisphere of the globe, from the
fortieth parallel to the sixtieth, and possibly to near the seventieth
degree of latitude.

Just as the North American Indian regards the great bones of
Professor Marsh’s extinct Eocene mammals that peep out from
the sides of buttes and cafons, as belonging to his ancestors,
so we find that in all parts of the world the bones of extinct
elephants have, on account of their great size (and partly from
a certain resemblance, in some, to bones of the human skeleton),
been regarded as testifying to the former existence of giants,
heroes, and demigods. ‘To the present day the Hindoos consider
such remains as belonging to the Aakshas, or Titans,—beings that
figure largely in their ancient writings. Theophrastus, of Lesbos,
a pupil of Aristotle, appears to have been the first to record the
discovery of fossil ivory and bones, These were probably obtained
by the country people from certain deposits in.the neighbourhood,
and are raentioned five hundred years later by Pausanias. Several
Greek legends and traditions appear to be founded on such
discoveries.

Thus the Greeks mistook the knee-bone of an elephant for
that of Ajax. In like manner the supposed body of Orestes,
thirteen feet in length, discovered by the Spartans at Tegea,
doubtless was the skeleton of some elephant. In the isle of
Rhodes, in Sicily, and near Palmero, Syracuse, and at many
other places, similar remains have afforded a basis for stories of
giants. In fact, so much has been said by old writers on this
subject, that whole volumes might be filled with such matter. Let
one or two examples suffice.

196 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

In the year 1613 some workmen in a sand-pit near the castle
of Chaumont, not far from St. Antoine, found some bones
(probably of the Mammoth or Mastodon) of the nature of which
they were entirely ignorant, and many of them they broke up.
But a certain surgeon named Mazuyer, hearing of the discovery,
bought the bones, and announced that he had himself discovered
them in a tomb thirty feet long, bearing in Gothic characters
the inscription, “‘Teutobochus Rex.” This was a barbarian king
who invaded Gaul at the head of the Cimbri, and was defeated
near Aix, in Provence, by Marius, who brought him to Rome to
grace his triumphal procession. Mazuyer reminded his credulous
readers that, according to the testimony of Roman authors, the
head of this king was larger than any of the trophies borne upon
the lances in triumph, and for a time his marvellous story was
accepted. The skeleton of this pretended giant-king was ex-
hibited in many cities of France and Germany, and also before
Louis XII., who took great interest in it. The imposture was
detected and exposed by Riolan, and thus a great controversy
arose, and numerous pamphlets were written on both sides. The
skeleton remained at Bordeaux till the year 1832, when it was
sent to the Museum of Natural History at Paris, where it may
still be seen. It is needless to say that, on its arrival there,
M. Blainville at once recognised it as being that of an elephant
—a Mastodon, in fact.

Another giant-story may be narrated as follows. In the year
1577 some large bones were discovered, through the uprooting of
an oak by a storm, in the Canton of Lucerne, in Switzerland.
These bones were afterwards declared by the celebrated physician
and professor at Basle, Felix Plater, to be those of a giant. This
learned man estimated the height of the giant at nineteen feet!
and made a drawing thereof, which he sent to Lucerne. The
bones have since nearly all vanished, but Blumenbach, at the
beginning of this century, saw enough of them to prove their
eiephantine nature. The good people of Lucerne, however,

THE MAMMOTH. 197

being reluctant to abandon their giant, have, since the sixteenth
century, made him the supporter of their city arms,

The Church of St. Christopher, at Valence, possessed an
elephant’s tooth, which was shown as the tooth of St. Christopher.
As this relic was “bigger than a man’s fist,” it is difficult to
picture what idea the people entertained of their saint !

In 1564 two peasants observed on the banks of the Rhone,
along a slope, some great bones sticking out of the ground.
These they carried to the neighbouring village, where they were
examined by Cassanion, who lived at Valence, and was the author
of a treatise on giants (De Gigantibus). Cuvier concluded from
this writer’s description of the tooth that it belonged to an
elephant.

Otto de Guericke, famous as the inventor of the air-pump, in
1663 witnessed the discovery of a fossil elephant, with its tusks
preserved. These he mistook for horns; so did even the
illustrious Leibnitz, who created out of his own imagination a
strange animal, with a great horn in the middle of its forehead,
as the creature to which these remains belonged! One is re-
minded of Bret Harte’s amusing jeu d’esprit, The Society upon the
Stanislaus—

‘© Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare ;”

and how the members of this learned society came to blows over
their fossil bones, and hurled them at one another—“ till the skull
of an old mammoth caved the head of Thomson in.” But in this
case, the ‘‘animal that was extremely rare” was believed in for
a long time, and Leibnitz’s “fossil unicorn” was universally
accepted throughout Germany for more than thirty years. At
last, however, a complete skeleton of a Mammoth was discovered,
and recognised as belonging to an elephant ; but the unicorn was
not given up without a keen controversy.!

? The writer is indebted for much of the information here given with
regard to the discoveries of Mammoth bones, and legends founded thereon, to
M, Figuier’s World before the Deluge.

198 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Near the city of Constadt, in the year 1700, a great quantity of
bones and tusks of elephants were discovered, after excavations
had been made by order of the reigning duke, who had been
informed by a soldier of Wiirtemberg of the presence of bones in
the soil. In this way some sixty tusks were unearthed. The
whole ones were preserved, but those which were broken were
given to the Court physician, who made use of them for medicinal
purposes. After this the “‘ Ebur fossile,” or “‘ Unicornu fossile,”
was freely used by the German doctors, until the discovery of the
bone-caves of the Hartz, when it became too abundant to pass
for true unicorn, and consequently lost much of its repute.

In our own country elephantine remains have also given rise to
strange tales. The village of Walton, near Harwich, is famous
for the abundance of Mammoth remains, which lie along the base
of the sea-cliffs, mixed with the bones of horses, oxen, and deer.
‘‘ The more bulky of these fossils,” says Professor Owen, “appear
to have early attracted the notice of the curious. Lambard, in
his Dictionary, says that ‘in Queen Elizabeth’s time bones were
found, at Walton, of a man whose skull would contain five pecks,
and one of his teeth as big as a man’s fist, and weighed ten
ounces. These bones had sometimes bodies, not of beasts, but
of men, for the difference is manifest.’ ”

According to the same authority, there is reason to believe
that instances have occurred in Great Britain in which, with due
care and attention, a more or less entire skeleton of the Mammoth
might have been secured. He mentions the case of the discovery
of a number of Mammoth bones by some workmen in a brick-
ground, near the village of Grays, in Essex. But most unfor-
tunately, in their ignorance, they broke up these valuable relics,
and sold the fragments, for three half-pence a pound, to a dealer
in old bones! This somewhat lucrative traffic went on for over
half a year before the matter came to the notice of Mr. R. Ball,
F.G.S., who recovered some fine bones from the men, and thus
rescued them from the destruction that awaited them.

THE MAMMOTH. 199

It is greatly to be hoped that some day our National Treasure
House at South Kensington may be enriched with a complete
Mammoth skeleton from British soil.

The Chinese, as might be expected, heard of the Mammoth
long before Europeans did, and they have some strange stories
about it. In the northern part of Siberia, so great is the abun-
dance of Mammoth tusks, that for a very long period there has been
a regular export of Mammoth ivory, both eastward to China and
westward to Europe. Even in the middle of the tenth century
an active trade was carried on at Khiva in fossil ivory, which was
fashioned into combs, vases, and other objects, as related by an
Arab writer of that time. Middendorf reckoned that the number
of fossil tusks which have yearly come into the market, during the
last two centuries, has been at least a hundred pairs—an estimate
which Nordenskiold considers as well within the mark. They
are found all along the line of the shore between the mouth of
the Obi and Behring Straits, and the further north a traveller
goes, the more numerous does he find them. The soil of Bear
Island and of the Liachoff Islands (New Siberia) is said to consist
only of sand and ice with such’ quantities of Mammoth bones
that it appears as if they were almost made up of bones and
tusks. Every summer numbers of fishermen make for these
islands to collect fossil ivory, and during the winter immense
caravans return laden with Mammoth tusks. The convoys are
drawn by dogs, and in this way the ivory reaches both the ancient
Eastern and the newer Western markets.

It is evident from the Chinese legends that the frozen bodies
of Mammoths have for ages past been either seen by, or reported
to, members of the celestial empire, for it is mentioned in some
of their old books as an animal that lives underground. In a
great Chinese work on natural history, written in the sixteenth
century, the following quaint description occurs: “The animal
named /en-schu, of which we have already spoken, in the ancient
work upon the ceremonial entitled Zy&7 [a work of the fifth century

200 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

before Christ] is called also fyz-schu, or yn-schu, that is to say,
‘the mouse that hides itself.’ It always lives in subterranean
caverns ; it resembles a mouse, but is of the size of a buffalo or
ox. It has no tail; its colour is dark; it is very strong, and
excavates caverns in places full of rocks and forests.” Another
writer says, “The /yz-schuw haunts obscure and unfrequented
places. It dies as soon as it is exposed to the rays of the sun or
moon ; its feet are short in proportion to its size, which causes it
to walk badly. Its tail is a Chinese ell in length. Its eyes are
small, and its neck short. It is very stupid and sluggish. When
the inundations of the river Zamschuann-tuy took place [in 1571]
a great many /yz-schu appeared in the plain ; it fed on the roots
of the plant fw-kza.”

An old Russian traveller, who, in 1692, was sent by Peter the
Great as ambassador to the Emperor of China, mentions the
discovery of the heads and legs of Mammoths in frozen soil.
After referring to these discoveries, he says, ‘‘ Concerning this
animal there are very different reports. The heathens of Jakutsk,
Tungus, and Ostiaks say that they continually, or at least, by
reason of the very hard frosts, mostly live underground, where
they go backwards and forwards ; to confirm which they tell us
that they have often seen the earth heaved up when one of these
beasts was upon the march, and, after he passed, the place sink
in, and thereby make a deep pit. They further believe that if
this animal comes so near to the surface of the frozen earth as to
smell the air, he immediately dies, which they say is the reason
that several of them are found dead on the high banks of the
river, where they unawares came out of the ground. ‘This is the
opinion of the infidels concerning these beasts, which are never
seen. But the old Siberian Russians affirm that the Mammoth is
very like the elephant, with this difference only, that the teeth of
the former are firmer, and not so straight as those of the latter... .
By all I could gather from the heathens, no person ever saw one
of these beasts alive, or can give any account of its shape; so

THE MAMMOTH. 201

that all we heard said on this subject arises from bare conjecture
only.”

But making all allowance for the gross absurdities of these
accounts, it is clear that they are based on descriptions—probably
by the Tungusian fishermen—of carcases that have been washed
out of the frozen soil by rivers in flood time. Now that we
are in possession of trustworthy accounts, we can understand
how these strange tales arose among an ignorant and superstitious
people, such as the fishermen of these inhospitable shores.

We will now put before the reader the true accounts given by
Adams? and Benkendorf.

In 1799 a Tungusian, named Schumachoff, who generally
went to hunt and fish at the peninsula of Tamut after the
fishing season of the Lena was over, had constructed for his
wife some cabins on the banks of the lake Oncoul, and had
embarked to seek along the coasts for Mammoth tusks. One
day he saw among the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but
did not then discover what it was. In 1800 he perceived
that this object was more disengaged from the ice, and that
it had two projecting parts; and towards the end of the
summer of r8o1 the entire side of the animal and one of his
tusks were quite free from ice. In 1803 the enormous mass
fell by its own weight on a bank of sand. It was a frozen
Mammoth! In 1804 Schumachoff came to his Mammoth, and
having cut off the tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for
goods. Two years afterwards Mr. Adams, the narrator of the
story, traversed these distant and desert regions, and found the
Mammoth still in the same place, but sadly mutilated. The
people of the neighbourhood had cut off the flesh, and fed their
dogs with it during the scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white
bears, wolves, and foxes, also had fed on it, and the traces of
their footsteps were seen around. The skeleton was complete

1 Abridged from Memoirs of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St.
Petersburg, vol. vy. London, 1819.

202 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

all except one leg, but the flesh had almost all gone. The head
was covered with a dry skin, one of the ears was seen to be
covered with a tuft of hairs. All these parts suffered more or
less injury in transport for a distance of 7330 miles to St.
Petersburg, yet the eyes have been preserved. This Mammoth
was a male, with a long mane on its neck, but both tail and
proboscis had disappeared. The skin is of a dark grey colour,
covered with a reddish wool and black hairs. The entire carcase
was nine feet four inches high. ‘The skin of the side on which
the carcase had lain was detached by Mr. Adams, for it was well
preserved, but so heavy was it that ten persons found great
difficulty in transporting it to the shore. The white bears, while
devouring the flesh, had trodden into the ground much of the
hair belonging to the carcase, but Mr. Adams was able by digging
to procure about sixty pounds’ weight of hair. In a few days the
work was completed, and he found himself in possession of
a treasure which amply compensated him for the fatigues and
dangers of the journey as well as the expense of the enterprise.
When first seen, this Mammoth was embedded in clear pure ice,
which forms in that coast escarpments of considerable thickness,
sloping towards the sea, the top of which is covered with moss
and earth. If the account of the Tungusians can be trusted, the
carcase was some way below the surface of the ice when first
seen. Arrived at Takutsk, Mr. Adams purchased a pair of tusks
which he believed to belong to this Mammoth, but there is reason
to doubt whether he did get the right tusks. They are nine feet
six inches long.

The skeleton of this specimen, the fame of which may be said
to have spread all over the world, is now set up in the Museum
of the St. Petersburg Academy, and the skin still remains attached
to the head and feet. A part of the skin and some of the hair
were sent by Mr. Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented them
to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.* A photograph

1 A specimen of the hair of a mammoth may be also seen at the Natural

THE MAMMOTH. 203

of the skeleton as it now stands, may be seen on the wall of the
big Geological Gallery at South Kensington (No. I. on plan), near
the specimens of Mammoth tusks. But it should be pointed out
that the tusks are put on the wrong way; for they curve outwards
instead of inwards, thus presenting a somewhat grotesque appear-
ance. For this reason we have not reproduced the familiar
woodcut based on an engraving in the memoir already referred

aw

wey

ol
y ==
Ne ——

LAA i

Fic. 52.—Skeleton of Mammoth, Ziephas primigentus (partly restored), in
the Museum at Brussels. Drawn from a photograph, by J. Smit.

a

to.’ But we give, instead, a sketch taken from a photograph (also

on the wall in gallery No. I.) of a fine skeleton in the Brussels
Museum (Fig. 52). Here the tusks are seen correctly inserted.
We must also draw the reader’s attention to the remarkably fine

History Museum (pier case 31) ina tall glass jar. It came from frozen soil,
Behring Strait. By the side of this will be seen, in a glass box, a portion of
the skin of a mammoth, from the banks of the river Alaseja, Province of
Yakutsk, Siberia. It exhibits the under fur, the long hair having entirely
disappeared.

1 Fig. 32 in Part I. of the Guide to the Exhibition Galleries in the Depart-
ment of Geology and Paleontology in the British Museum (Natural History),
Cromwel! Road. (Price 1s.) This most useful guide should be consulted by
the reader.

204 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

specimen (glazed case E on plan) consisting of the skull and
both tusks complete, found at Ilford in Essex.

Adams’s specimen was, Dr. Woodward thinks, an old individual,
and its tusks had curved upwards so much as to be of little use.
In younger ones they were less curved. The hair that still
remains en the skin of the St. Petersburg specimen is of the
colour of the camel, very thick-set and curled in locks. Bristles
of a dark colour are interspersed, some reddish, and some nearly
black. The colour of the skin is a dull black, as in living
elephants (see restoration, Plate XX.).

Remains of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius) have been
found in great numbers in the British Isles. A list of localities
(from Mr. Leith Adams’s monograph on fossil elephants) is given
in the Appendix, but even this might be extended. Mr. Samuel
Woodward calculated that upward of two thousand grinders of
elephants have been dredged up during a period of thirteen years
upon the oyster-bed off Hasborough, on the Norfolk coast. But
many of these doubtless belong to other species of older date,
such as Elephas antiquus.

Dr. Bree, of Colchester, says that the sea-bottom off Dunkirk,
whence he has made a collection, is so full of mammalian remains
that the sailors speak of it as ‘‘ the Burying-ground.”

The remains of the Mammoth occur over a very large
geographical area—fully half the globe.

By far the most important discovery of a frozen Mammoth is
that of a young Russian engineer, Benkendorf by name, who
was an eye-witness of its resurrection, though, most unfortunately,
he was unable either to procure his specimen, as Mr. Adams did,
or to make drawings of it. Being employed by the Russian
Government in making a survey of the coast off the mouth of
the Lena and Indigirka rivers, he was despatched up the latter
river in 1846, in command of a small steam-cutter. The following
is a translation of the account which he wrote to a friend in
Germany.

————Ee ae Oerr”Ert—c( eS — —_

‘aBy 90] ward oy) Sutinp suorsa1 ussyqWON jo uvuqeyul uy ‘XX FLvig
‘SQINAOINIYd SVHAATA SHLONWVYW AHL

THE MAMMOTH. 205

“Tn 1846 there was unusually warm weather in the north of
Siberia. Already in May unusual rains poured over the moors
and bogs, storms shook the earth, and the streams carried not
only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land, thawed by the
masses of warm water fed by the southern rains. ... We steamed
on the first favourable day up the Indigirka; but there were no
thoughts of land; we saw around us only a sea of dirty brown
water, and knew the river only by the rushing and roaring of the
stream. The river rolled against us trees, moss, and large masses
of peat, so that it was only with great trouble and danger that
we could proceed. At the end of the second day, we were only
about forty versts up the stream; some one had to stand with
the sounding-rod in hand continually, and the boat received so
many shocks that it shuddered to the keel. A wooden vessel
would have been smashed. Around us we saw nothing but the
flooded land for eight days. We met with the like hindrances until
at last we reached the place where our Jakuti were to have met
us. Further up was a place called Ujandina, whence the people
were to have come to us; but they were not there, prevented
evidently by the floods.

‘* As we had been there in former years, we knew the place.
But how it had changed! The Indigirka, here about three versts
wide, had torn up the land and worn itself a fresh channel; and
when the waters sank we saw, to our astonishment, that the old
river-bed had become merely that of an insignificant stream.
This allowed me to cut through the soft earth, and we went recon-
noitring up the new stream, which had worn its way westwards.
Afterwards we landed on the new shore, and surveyed the under-
mining and destructive operation of the wild waters, that carried
away, with extraordinary rapidity, masses of soft peat and loam.
It was then that we made a wonderful discovery. The land
on which we were treading was moorland, covered thickly with
young plants. Many lovely flowers rejoiced the eye in the warm
beams of the sun, that shone for twenty-two out of the twenty-four

206 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

hours. The stream rolled over and tore up the soft wet ground
like chaff, so that it was dangerous to go near the brink. While
we were all quiet, we suddenly heard under our feet a sudden
gurgling and stirring, which betrayed the working of the disturbed
waters. Suddenly our jager, ever on the outlook, called loudly,
and pointed to a singular and unshapely object, which rose and
sank through the disturbed waters. I had already remarked it,
but not given it any attention, considering it only driftwood.
Now we all hastened to the spot on the shore, had the boat
drawn near, and waited until the mysterious thing should again
show itself. Our patience was tried, but at last a black, horrible,
giant-like mass was thrust out of the water, and we beheld a
colossal elephant’s head, armed with mighty tusks, with its long
trunk moving in the water in an unearthly manner, as though
seeking for something lost therein. Breathless with astonishment,
I beheld the monster hardly twelve feet from me, with his half-
open eyes yet showing the whites. It was still in good pre-
servation.

“¢A mammoth! a mammoth!’ broke out the Tschernomori ;
and I shouted, ‘Here, quickly. Chains and ropes!’ I will
go over our preparations for securing the giant animal, whose
body the water was trying to tear from us. As the animal again
sank, we waited for an opportunity to throw the ropes over his
neck. This was only accomplished after many efforts. For
the rest we had no cause for anxiety, for after examining the
ground I satisfied myself that the hind legs of the Mammoth
still stuck in the earth, and that the waters would work for us to
unloosen them. We therefore fastened a rope round his neck,
threw a chain round his tusks, that were eight feet long, drove
a stake into the ground about twenty feet from the shore, and
made chain and rope fast to it. The day went by quicker than
I thought for, but still the time seemed long before the animal
was secured, as it was only after the lapse of twenty-four hours
that the waters had loosened it. But the position of the animal

THE MAMMOTH. 207

was interesting to me; it was standing in the earth, and not lying
on its side or back as a dead animal naturally would, indicating
by this the manner of its destruction. The soft peat or marsh
land, on which he stepped thousands of years ago, gave way
under the weight of the giant, and he sank as he stood on it,
feet foremost, incapable of saving himself; and a severe frost
came and turned him into ice, and the moor which had buried
him. The latter, however, grew and flourished, every summer
renewing itself. Possibly the neighbouring stream had heaped
over the dead body plants and sand. God only knows what
causes had worked for its preservation ; now, however, the stream
had brought it once more to light of day, and I, an ephemera of
life compared with this primeeval giant, was sent by Heaven just
at the right time to welcome him. You can imagine how I
jumped for joy.

“‘ During our evening meal, our posts announced strangers—a
troop of Jakuti came on their fast, shaggy horses. They were our
appointed people, and were very joyful at the sight of us. Our
company was augmented by them to about fifty persons. On
showing them our wonderful capture, they hastened to the stream,
and it was amusing to hear how they chattered and talked over
the sight. The first day I left them in quiet possession, but when,
on the following, the ropes and chains gave a great jerk, a sign
that the Mammoth was quite freed from the earth, I commanded
them to use their utmost strength and bring the beast to land.
At length, after much hard work, in which the horses were
extremely useful, the animal was brought to land, and we were
able to roll the body about twelve feet from the shore. The
decomposing effect of the warm air filled us all with astonishment.

‘Picture to yourself an elephant with a body covered with
thick fur, about thirteen feet in height, and fifteen in length, with
tusks eight feet long, thick, and curving outward at their ends,}
a stout trunk of six feet in length, colossal limbs of one and a

' This must be incorrect (see p. 203).

208 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

half feet in thickness, and a tail, naked up to the end, which was
covered with thick tufty hair. The animal was fat and well-
grown ; death had overtaken him in the fulness of his powers.
His parchment-like, large, naked ears, lay fearfully turned over
the head ; about the shoulders and the back he had stiff hair,
about a foot in length, like a mane. ‘The long outer hair was
deep brown and coarsely rooted. The top of the head looked
so wild, and so penetrated with pich’ that it resembled the rind
of an old oak tree. On the sides it was cleaner, and under the
outer hair there appeared everywhere a wool, very soft, warm
and thick, and of a fallow-brown colour. The giant was well
protected against the cold. The whole appearance of the animal
was fearfully strange and wild. It had not the shape of our
present elephants. As compared with our Indian elephants, its
head was rough, the brain-case low and narrow, but the trunk
and mouth were much larger. The teeth were very powerful.
Our elephant is an awkward animal, but compared with this
Mammoth it is as an Arabian steed to a coarse, ugly dray-horse.
I could not divest myself of a feeling of fear as I approached the
head ; the broken, widely-open eyes, gave the animal an appear-
ance of life, as though it might move in a moment and destroy us
with a roar. ... The bad smell of the body warned us that it
was time to save of it what we could, and the swelling flood, too,
bid us hasten. First of all we cut off the tusks, and sent them
to the cutter. Then the people tried to hew off the head, but
notwithstanding their good will, this work was slow. As the belly
of the animal was cut open the intestines rolled out, and then the
smell was so dreadful that I could not overcome my nauseous-
ness, and was obliged to turn away. But I had the stomach
separated, and brought on one side. It was well filled, and the
contents instructive and well preserved. The principal were
young shoots of the fir and pine ; a quantity of young fir-cones,
also in a chewed state, were mixed with the mass. . . . As we were

1 «* Und mit Pech so durchgedrungen.”

THE MAMMOTH. 209

eviscerating the animal, I was as careless and forgetful as my
Jakuti, who did not notice that the ground was sinking under
their feet, until a fearful scream warned me of their misfortune,
as I was still groping in the animal’s stomach. Shocked, I sprang
up, and beheld how the river was burying in its waves our five
Jakuti and our laboriously saved beast. Fortunately, the boat
was near, so that our poor workpeople were all saved, but the
Mammoth was swallowed up by the waves, and never more made
its appearance.”

Much may be learned from this highly interesting account ; it
contains the key to several questions which otherwise might have
remained unsolved. Let us see what conclusions can be derived
therefrom. /7rst, its position and perfect state of preservation
are sufficient to prove that it was buried where it died. It sank
in a marsh, probably during the summer. Then came the cold
of winter ; the carcase, together with the ground around it, was
frozen so that decomposition was arrested, and frozen it must have
remained for many centuries till the day when M. Benkendorf
came across it. Or it may have been buried up in a snow-drift
which in time became ice.

In the region where frozen Mammoths occur (and there are at
least nine cases on record), a considerable thickness of frozen
soil may be found at all seasons of the year ; so that if a carcase
be once embedded in mud or ice, its putrefaction may be arrested
for indefinite ages. According to one authority, the ground is
now permanently frozen even to the depth of four hundred feet
at the town of Jakutsh, on the western bank of the river Lena.
Throughout a large part of Siberia the boundary cliffs of the lakes
and rivers consist of earthy materials and ice in horizontal layers.
Middendorf bored to the depth of seventy feet, and after passing
through much frozen soil mixed with ice, came down upon a
solid mass of pure transparent ice, the depth of which he was
unable to ascertain,

The year 1846, when M. Benkendorf saw his Mammoth, was

Pp

210 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

exceptional on account of its unusually warm summer, so that the
ground of the tundra region thawed, and was converted into a
morass. Hadany Mammoths been alive then, and strayed beyond
the limits of the woods into the tundra, probably some of them
would have been likewise engulphed, and, when once covered up
and protected from the decaying action of the air, the cold of the
next winter would have frozen their carcases as this one must
have been frozen up.

Truly, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and the present
highly useful method of freezing meat and bringing it over from
America or New Zealand to add to our insufficient home supplies,
is but a resort to a process employed by Nature long before the
age of steamships, and perhaps even before the appearance of
man on the earth !

Secondly, with regard to the food of the Mammoth, Benkendorf’s
discovery is of great service in solving the question how such
a creature could have maintained its existence in so inhospitable
and unpromising a country. The presence of fir-spikes in the
stomach is sufficient to prove that it fed on vegetation such as is
now found at the northern part of the woods as they join the low
treeless tundra in which the body lay buried.

Before this discovery the food of the Mammoth was unknown,
and all sorts of theories were devised in order to account for its
remains being found so far north. Some thought that the
Mammoth lived in temperate regions, and that the carcases were
swept down by great floods into higher and colder latitudes.
But it would be impossible for the bodies to be hurried along a
devious course for so many miles without a good deal of injury,
and probably they would fall to pieces on the way. But, as
Professor Owen has so convincingly argued, there is no reason
why herds of Mammoths should not have obtained a sufficient
supply of food in a country like the southern part of Siberia,
where trees abound in spite of the fact that during a great part
of the year it is covered with snow. And this is his line of

THE MAMMOTH. 211

reasoning. The molar teeth of the elephant show a highly com-
plicated and peculiar structure, and there are no other quadrupeds
that feed to such an extent on the woody fibre of the branches
of trees. Many mammals, as we know, eat the leaves of trees ;
some gnaw the bark ; but elephants alone tear down and crunch
the branches. One would think there was but little nourishment
to be got from such. But the hard vertical plates of their huge
grinders enable them to pound up the tough vegetable tissue and
render it more or less palatable. Of course, the foliage is the most
tempting, but where foliage is scarce something more is required.

Now, in the teeth of the Mammoth the same principle of
construction is observed, only with greater complexity, for there
are more of these grinding plates and a larger proportion of
dense enamel. Hence the inference seems unmistakable that
the extinct species fed more largely on woody fibre than does the
elephant of to-day. Forests of hardy trees and shrubs still grow
upon the frozen soil of Siberia, and skirt the banks of the Lena
as far north as the sixtieth parallel of latitude.

If the Mammoth flourished in temperate latitudes only, as
formerly suggested, then its thick shaggy coat becomes super-
fluous and meaningless; but if it lived in the region where its
body has been found, then the argument from its teeth, and the
fir-spikes found in its stomach, is confirmed by the nature of its
skin, and all the old difficulties vanish. Professor Owen con-
siders that we may safely infer that, if living at the present day,
it would find a sufficient supply of food at all seasons of the year
in the sixtieth parallel, and even higher. Perhaps they migrated
north during the summer ; and, judging from the present limits of
arboreal vegetation, they may have been able to subsist even in
latitude 70° north, for at the extreme points of Lapland pines
attain a height of sixty feet.?

It is often no easy matter to form conclusions with regard to

1 Sir Henry Howorth, in his Mammoth and the Flood, suggests another
theory, and gives some valuable information.

212 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

the habits of extinct animals ; and too much reliance must not
be placed on arguments derived from the habits of their living
descendants or their near relations. The older geologists fell
into this mistake with regard to the Mammoth, as did even
Cuvier. Modern elephants are at present restricted to regions
where trees flourish with perennial foliage, and, therefore, it was
argued that there must have been a change of climate—either
gradual or sudden, in the country of the Mammoth.

Cuvier, who believed in sudden revolutions on the earth’s
surface, argued that the Mammoth could not possibly have lived
in Siberia as it is now; and that, at the very moment when the
beast was destroyed, the land was suddenly converted into a
glacial region! (‘‘C’est donc le méme instant qui a fait périr les
animaux, et qui a rendu glacial le pays quwils habitaient, cet
événement a été subit, instantané, sams aucune gradation.”*) Sir
Charles Lyell argued, from geological evidence with regard to
the rise of land along the Siberian coast, that the climate had
become somewhat more severe, and that finally the Mammoth,
though protected by its shaggy coat, died out on account of
scarcity of food.?

Professor Owen is unwilling to believe that such changes as
these brought about the final extinction of the Mammoth, and he
concludes that it was quite possible for such an animal to have
flourished as near to the North Pole as is compatible with the
growth of hardy trees or shrubs.

‘‘The fact seems to have been generally overlooked, that an
animal organised to gain its subsistence from the branches or
woody fibre of trees, is thereby rendered independent of the
seasons which regulate the development of leaves and fruit; the
forest food of such a species becomes as perennial as the lichens
that flourish beneath the winter snows of Lapland; and, were
such a quadruped to be clothed, like the reindeer, with a natural

1 Ossemens Fosstles, tom. i. p. 108.
2 See The Principles of Geology, vol. i. chap. x.

THE MAMMOTH. 25

garment capable of resisting the rigours of an arctic winter, its
adaptation for such a climate would be complete. ... The
wonderful and unlooked-for discovery of an entire Mammoth,
demonstrating the arctic character of its natural clothing, has,
however, confirmed the deductions which might have been
legitimately founded upon the localities of its most abundant
remains, as well as upon the structure of its teeth, viz. that, like
the Reindeer and Musk Ox of the present day, it was capable of
existing in high northern latitudes.” *

The problem of the extinction of the Mammoth is not an easy
one to solve. We can hardly account for its disappearance by
calling in geographical changes by which its range became
restricted, and its food supply diminished, so that in the com-
petition with other herbivorous animals this primeval giant
‘‘went to the wall,” as the saying is. Nor does Lyell’s appeal to
a change in climate, by which the cold of Siberia became too
intense even for the Mammoth, seem quite satisfactory, espe-
cially when we remember how very far north fir trees range
(ps 237):

The Mammoth, probably, was endowed with a fairly tough
constitution. In Siberia it fed on fir trees. In Kentucky it
fared better, and was surrounded by such vegetation as now
flourishes in that temperate region. In the valley of the Tiber
(where also its remains are found), though during the “ Glacial
period” the temperature was, doubtless, lower than at present,
we cannot imagine that an arctic climate prevailed. Thus we
see that it was capable of flourishing in various and widely
separated regions where the conditions of climate and food supply
could hardly have been similar.

Professor Boyd Dawkins, whose views we are adopting here,?
considers that the Mammoth was exterminated by man—a simple

1 4 History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds, by Richard Owen,
F.R.S., ete. London, 1846.
2 Popular Science Review, vol. vii. p. 275 (1868).

214 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

solution of the question, which seems to present no difficulties.
That it was hunted by the primitive folk of the “ Reindeer
period” in France, is proved by its remains in the caves where
men dwelt, and by a drawing cut by a hunter of the older Stone
Age on one of its own tusks! A cast of this most interesting relic
may be seen in the prehistoric collection at the British Museum, and
shows that the men of that time were not devoid of artistic power
(see Fig. 53). Some of the lines in this illustration represent cracks
in the original, so that the actual outline is not easily made out.
But here we see the head particularly well drawn, the tusks and
downward lines indicating the hairy mane. Reindeer and other

Fic. 53.—Figure of the Mammoth, engraved on Mammoth ivory by cave-
men, La Madelaine, France. In the Lartet Collection, Paris.

animals were also engraved on horn, etc., by the men who were
contemporary with the Mammoth.

We know that man has exterminated a great many noble animals
in his time, and, alas! continues to do so at the present time in
Africa, and in North and South America. The giraffe and the
bison, once so plentiful, are now almost extinct. Primitive man
was a hunter, and, as he multiplied, his wants became greater,
and more animals were therefore destroyed. Probably the same
explanation applies to the great Moa bird of New Zealand, and
possibly even to the Megatherium of South America.

THE MAMMOTH. ais

With regard to the tusks of the Mammoth, which are consider-
ably larger than those of either the African or Indian elephant, it
is evident that they must have been of some service, for Nature
would never have endowed the animal with such great and
ponderous instruments—to support which the skull is greatly
modified in both the Mammoth and elephant—without some
definite purpose. We have often been asked how the Mammoth
used his tusks; now, this question can best be answered by
reference to the habits of living elephants. The elephant of to-day
is a fairly peaceable creature, but, if attacked, can despatch the
aggressor in various ways. Some enemies he can crush under
his feet ; a man he can pick up with his trunk and hurl to a con-
siderable distance, probably with fatal results. But the tusks do
not appear to be used as weapons of offence or defence. We
must consider how the animal feeds. The general food of
the elephant consists of the foliage of trees. In Africa it feeds
largely on mimosas. Now, it is clear that, in spite of having a
long trunk, an elephant cannot obtain all the leaves of a tall tree
while the tree remains standing ; mimosa trees, for instance, are
often thirty feet high, and have richer foliage at the crown. So
it appears that they actually overturn them. On this point we
have the testimony of Sir Samuel Baker, who says, ‘‘ The
destruction caused by a herd of elephants in a mimosa forest is
extraordinary, and I have seen trees uprooted of so large a size
that Iam convinced no single elephant could have overturned
them. I have measured trees four feet six inches in circumfer-
ence, and about thirty feet high, uprooted by elephants. The
natives assured me that the elephants mutually assist each other,
and that several engage together in the work of overturning a
large tree. None of the mimosas have tap-roots; thus the
powerful tusks of the elephants applied as crowbars at the roots,
while others pull at the branches with their trunks, will effect the
destruction of a tree so large as to appear invulnerable.” Another
writer says the elephant also feeds on a variety of bulbs, the

216 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

situation of which is indicated by his exquisite sense of smell,
and that, to obtain these, he turns up the ground with his tusks,
so that whole acres may be seen thus ploughed up.

Now, in Siberia, where the ground would-be harder, we can
imagine that the larger tusks of the Mammoth would be highly
serviceable in uprooting fir trees and breaking off their branches,
for Benkendorf’s fortunate discovery informs us that such trees
formed at least part of their food.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MASTODON AND THE WOOLLY RHINOCEROS,

“* Of one departed world
I see the mighty show.”

ANOTHER elephantine monster, evidently allied to the Mammoth,
was the Mastodon, a creature which there is reason to think was
contemporary, in America, with the men of a prehistoric age. It
was so named by Baron Cuvier to distinguish it from the Mammoth,
with which it was by others considered identical; and his dis-
crimination of the two forms marked an important and early step
in the history of paleontology. The chief difference between
these two extinct types lies in their molar teeth. These, on
cutting the gum, must have exhibited a number of somewhat
conical protuberances of a mammiform appearance; hence the
name.’ As these points were worn down by mastication, the
surface of the tooth showed a series of discs of various sizes.
The teeth were covered by a very thick coat of dense, brittle
enamel. There are, however, differences in the bony framework
of the animal, as well as in its general proportions, which serve
to distinguish it from the Mammoth; but it will not be necessary
to enter into these matters here, for this is difficult ground, even
to the student who is well versed in anatomy. Notwithstanding
a vast amount of observation on the subject, considerable differ-
ences of opinion have prevailed among palzontologists with

1 Greek—mastos, teat ; odous, odontos, tooth.

218 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

regard to the proper relation of the Mastodon to the Mammoth
and living elephants.

At the entrance of the Geological Gallery in the Natural History
Museum, South Kensington, the reader will see a magnificent
skeleton of an American Mastodon, of which more presently.
On this specimen our artist has based his restoration, Plate XXI.
A large part of the great gallery referred to is devoted to the
fossil remains of proboscideans ; that is, creatures provided with
a long proboscis, or trunk, such as elephants and Mastodons.
This collection, from widely different quarters, is the largest and

Fic. 54.—Skeleton of Mastodon arvernensis, Pliocene, Europe.

most complete in the world. By comparing the specimens of
teeth in the cases, and looking at the fine specimens of skulls,
and the numerous bones and tusks in the side cases, the reader
will carry away a better idea than we can convey by description.
Fig. 54 shows the skeleton of Mastodon arvernensis with two
very long tusks. Mastodon augustidens had four tusks, two in
each jaw, but one of those in the lower jaw sometimes dropped
out as the animal grew older.

No genus of quadrupeds has been more extensively diffused
over the globe than the Mastodon. From the tropics it has

8 Fe

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a Pin) oe = ye
J,

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= Se

9

THE MASTODON OF OHIO, M. AMERICANUS.

PLatTe XXI.

MASTODON AND WOOLLY RHINOCEROS. 219

extended both north and south into temperate regions, and in
America its remains have been discovered as high as latitude 66° N.
But the true home of the Mastodon giganteus, in the United
States, like that of M. augustidens in Europe, lies in a more
temperate zone, and, as Professor Owen says, we have no evidence
that any species was specially adapted, like the Mammoth, for
braving the rigours of an arctic winter.

Now, we know from trustworthy geological evidence that the
Mastodon is a much older form of life than the Mammoth. The
record of the rocks tells us that it first put in an appearance in an
early Tertiary period known as the Miocene (see Table of Strata,
Appendix I.), and in the Old World lived on to the end of the
succeeding Pliocene period. But in America several species,
especially M. giganteus, survived till late in the Pleistocene period,
where it was probably seen by primitive men. ‘This is all that is
known about its geographical range, and its antiquity or range in
time ; some day, perhaps before very long, palzeontologists may be
able to trace the great proboscideans further back in time, and to
show from what form of animal they were derived. Strange as it
may seem, anatomists declare that they show some remote affinity
with the rodents, or gnawing animals, and, in some respects, even
with Sirenians, such as the Manatee (see Chapter XVI.) But
at present the evolution of this remarkable group of animals is an
unsolved problem. ‘Those strange animals, the Dinocerata, from
Wyoming, described in chap. x., may perhaps give some indi-
cation as to the direction in which we must look for the elephant’s
ancestors. We noticed that their limbs were decidedly elephantine
(see p. 150), but they had no trunks, and their skulls showed curious
prominences like horn-cores ; their teeth too are very different.

The visitor to the Geological Collection at South Kensington
will also notice a splendid cranium of an elephant, with very long
tusks, from the famous Sivalik Hills of Northern India! (Stand

1 There is some difficulty in determining the precise geological age of the
strata in question, on account of the curious mixture of fossil forms of life they
contain ; but many authorities consider them to be of older Pliocene age.

220 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

D on plan). It belonged to Elephas ganesa, one of the largest
of all the fossil elephants known. The total length of the
cranium and tusks is fourteen feet, and the tusks alone measure
ten feet six inches in length! This remarkable specimen was
presented by Sir William Erskine Baker, K.C.B.

But to return to our Mastodon. It was early in the eighteenth
century that the teeth and bones of the Mastodon were first
described,’ and it is curious to observe how differently scientific
discoveries were regarded in those days; for this society of
learned men published in these Zvansactions a letter from Dr.
Mather to Dr. Woodward, in which the former gives an
account of a large work in manuscript, but does not name the
author. ‘This book, which appears to have been a commentary
on the Bible, Dr. Mather recommends ‘“‘to the patronage of
some generous Mcecenas to promote the publication of it,” and
transcribes, as a specimen, a passage announcing the discovery
at Albany, now the capital of New York State, in the year 1705,
of enormous bones and teeth. These relics he considered to
belong to a former race of giants, and appeals to them in con-
firmation of Genesis vi. 4 (“The Nephilim (giants) were in the
earth in those days ”).

Portions of the skeleton of Mastodon, discovered in 1801, were
sent to England and France, and two complete specimens were
at length put together in America. One of these was exhibited
as a Mammoth, in Bristol and London, by Mr. C. W. Peale, a
naturalist, by whom they were found in marly clay on the banks
of the Hudson, near Newburgh, in the State of New York.

Previous to this, in 1739, a French officer, M. de Longueil,
traversed the virgin forests bordering on the river Ohio, in order
to reach the Mississippi, and the Indians who escorted him
accidentally discovered, on the borders of a marsh, various
bones, some of which seemed to be those of unknown animals.
In this turfy marsh, known as the Big Bone Lick, or Salt Lick, in

1 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1714, vol. xxix,

MASTODON AND WOOLLY RHINOCEROS. 221

consequence of the saltness of its waters, herds of wild animals
collect together, attracted by the salt, for which they have a great
liking. ‘This is probably the reason why so many bones have
accumulated here. M. de Longueil carried away some bones
and teeth, and, on his return to France, presented them to Dau-
benton and Buffon. The former declared the teeth to be those
of a hippopotamus, and the tusk and gigantic thigh-bone he
reported to belong to an elephant. Buffon, however, did not
share this opinion, and succeeded in converting Daubenton, as
well as other French naturalists, to his views. He gave to this
fossil animal the name of “ the Elephant of Ohio,” but formed an
exaggerated idea of its size.

This discovery produced a great impression in Europe. The
English, becoming masters of Canada by the peace of 1763,
sought eagerly for more remains. Croghan, the geographer,
visited the Big Bone Lick, and found there some more bones of
the same kind. He forwarded many cases to different naturalists
in London,

Sir Henry ,Howorth, in his recent work, Zhe Mammoth and
the Flood (im which are brought forward, certain views not
shared by most geologists), mentions that in 1762 the Shawnee
Indians found, some three miles from the river Ohio, the
skeletons of five Mastodons, and reported that one of the heads
had a long nose attached to it, below which was the mouth.
Several explorers report discoveries of a like nature, which, if they
may be trusted, and if they really refer to the Mastodon, and not
the Mammoth, seem to show that portions of the skin and hairy
covering have been seen. If so, their preservation is probably
due to the saltness of the waters of this marsh, for salt is a good
preservative. In Zhe American Journal of Science,s Dr. Koch
reports the discovery of a Mastodon’s skeleton, of which the
head and fore foot were well preserved, also large pieces of the
skin, which looked like freshly tanned leather, But some of

1 Vol. xxxvi. p. 199.

222 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

these accounts refer to tufts of hair—in one case three inches
long.

The great skeleton of Mastodon americanus already referred
to was purchased by the trustees of the British Museum, of
Mr. Albert Koch, a well-known collector of fossil remains, who
had exhibited it in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in 1842 and
1843, under the name of “ the Missouri Leviathan,” an enormous
and ill-constructed monster, made up of the bones of this
skeleton, together with many belonging to other individuals, in
such a way as to horrify an anatomist and appeal all the more
forcibly to the imagination of the public. From this hetero-
geneous assemblage of bones those belonging to the same animal
have now been selected and articulated in their proper places.
The height of this specimen is nine feet and a half, and the total
length about eighteen feet.

According to Mr. Koch, the remains exhibited by him were
found in alluvial deposits on the banks of a small tributary
of the Osage River, in Benton County, Missouri. The bones
were embedded in a brown, sandy deposit, full of vegetable
matter, in which were recognised remains of the cypress, tropical
cane, swamp moss, etc., and this was covered by blue clay and
gravel to a thickness of about fifteen feet. Mr. Koch personally
assured Dr. Mantell that an Indian flint arrow-head was found
beneath the leg-bones of this skeleton, and that four similar
weapons were embedded in the same stratum. He declared that
he took them out of the bed with his own hands.

In the Pier-case (No. 38), near the Mastodon americanus, may
be seen fifteen heads and jaws, together with other parts of the
skeleton, mostly obtained from the same locality, but some of
them came from the “‘ Big Bone Lick,” Kentucky.

A fine specimen, obtained from a marsh near Newburgh, by
Dr. Warren, measured eleven feet in height, and seventeen in
length, while the tusks were nearly ten feet long, not including
the portion in the long sockets of the cranium. Twenty-six
species of Mastodon are known.

MASTODON AND WOOLLY RHINOCEROS. 223

An interesting find was that of Dr. Barton, a professor of the
University of Pennsylvania. At a depth of six feet, and under
a great bank of chalk, bones of the Mastodon were found
sufficient to form a skeleton, and in the middle of the bones
was seen a mass of vegetable matter enveloped in a kind of sac
(which probably was the stomach of the animal). This matter
was found to be composed of small leaves and branches, amongst
which was recognised a species of rush yet common in Virginia.
In North America, where the Mastodon survived into the period
of primitive man, various strange legends exist that seem to refer
to it. Traditions were rife among the Red Men concerning this
giant form and its destruction.

A French officer named Fabri informed M. Buffon, the
naturalist, that the “ savages” (Indians) regarded the bones found
in various parts of Canada and Louisiana as belonging to an animal
which they named “ Father of the Ox.” The Shawnee Indians
believed that with this enormous animal there existed men of
proportionate development, and that the Great Being destroyed
both with thunderbolts. Those of Virginia state that as a troop
of these terrible animals were destroying the deer, bisons, and
other animals created for the use of Indians, the Great Man slew
them all with his thunder, except the Big Bull, who shook off the
thunderbolts as they fell on him, till at last, being wounded in the
side, he fled towards the great lakes, where he lies to this day.

This is one of the songs which Fabri heard in Canada:
*“When the great J/anitou descended to the earth, in order to
satisfy himself that the creatures he had created were happy, and
he interrogated all the animals, the bison replied that he
would be quite contented with his fate in the grassy meadows,
where the grass reached his belly, if he were not also compelled
to keep his eyes constantly turned towards the mountains to
catch the first sight of the ‘ Father of the Ox,’ as he descended,
with fury, to devour him and his companions.” Many other
tribes repeat similar legends.

224 EXTINCT MONSTERS.
The bones with which Mazuyer practised his famous deception
were those of a Mastodon (see p. 196).
Contemporary with the Mammoth in Siberia and in Northern
and Western Europe, was the ‘‘ Woolly Rhinoceros ” (Rhinoceros
Its body has been found in frozen soil in Siberia,

tichorhinus).
with the skin, the two horns, the hair, and even the flesh pre-
It had a smooth skin

served, as in the case of the Mammoth.
without folds, covered with a fine curly and coarse hairy coat,
The

to enable it to withstand the rigours of an arctic climate.

4

-,
*,
Ms, ~
», s
aS

a,
en
ee,
*
“.

VHGH VE
Mach \

(
SAM LN
SS

«

Fic. 55.—Head of Woolly Rhinoceros, partly restored by M. Deslongchamps.

traveller Pallas gives a long account of one of these creatures,
which was taken out of the ice, with its skin, hair, and flesh pre-
served. The following is a brief summary of his narrative.
body was observed in December, 1771, by some Jakuts near the
river Vilui, which discharges itself into the Lena below Jakutsk in

Siberia, latitude 64° north. It lay in frozen sand upon the banks
A certain Russian inspector had sent on to Irkutsk

of the river.

lowe ay1 yWM Aresoduiajog ‘TIXX JLv1g
‘SQNIHYOHOIL SOUAOONIHU ‘SOMADONIHA ATIOOM ALL

MASTODON AND WOOLLY RHINOCEROS. 225

the head and two feet of the animal, all well preserved. The
rest of it was too much decomposed, and so was left. The head
was quite recognisable, since it was covered with its leathery
skin. The eyelids had escaped total decay (see Fig. 55). The
skin and tendons of the head and feet still preserved considerable
flexibility. He was, however, compelled to cross the Baikal lake
before the ice broke up, and so could neither draw up a sufficiently
careful description nor make sketches of those parts which were
sufficiently preserved. Plate XXII. isa restoration.

The rhinoceros in question was neither large for its species
nor advanced in age; but it was at least fully grown. The horns
were gone, but had left evident traces on the head. The skin
which covered the orbits of the eyes and formed the eyelids was
so well preserved, that the openings of the eyelids could be seen,
though deformed and scarcely penetrable to the finger. The
foot that was left—after some parts had unfortunately been
burned while left to dry slowly on the top of a furnace—was
furnished with hairs. ‘These hairs adhering in many places to
the skin, were from one to three lines in length, tolerably stiff
and ash-coloured. What remained proved that the foot was
covered with bunches of hair hanging down.

Like the Mammoth and the Mastodon, its contemporaries, the
Woolly Rhinoceros has given rise to some curious legends. In
the city of Klagenfurt, in Carinthia, is a fountain on which is
sculptured the head of a monstrous dragon with six feet, and
a head surmounted by a stout horn. According to popular
tradition, still prevalent at Klagenfurt, this dragon lived in a
cave, whence it issued from time to time to frighten and ravage
the country. A bold cavalier killed the dragon, paying with his
life for this proof of courage. ‘The same kind of legend seems to
be current in every country, such as that of the valiant St. George
and the dragon, and of St. Martha, who about the same time
conquered the famous Zarasgue of the city of Languedoc, which
bears the name of Tarascon.

226 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

But at Klagenfurt the popular legend has happily found a
mouthpiece ; the head of the pretended dragon killed by the
valorous knight is preserved in the Hétel de Ville, and this
head has furnished the sculptor of the fountain with a model for
the head of his statue. Herr Unger, of Vienna, recognised at
a glance the cranium of the fossil rhinoceros ; its discovery in
some cave had probably originated the fable of the knight and
the dragon. It is always interesting to discover a scientific basis
for fables which otherwise it would be difficult to account for.

The same rhinoceros was once a denizen of our country, and
its remains are met with in caves and river-gravels. Specimens
of its skull have also been dredged up by fishermen from the
‘Dogger Bank” in the North Sea.

CHAPTER eV.
GIANT BIRDS.

**To discover order and intelligence in scenes of apparent wildness and
confusion is the pleasing task of the geological inquirer.” —Dr. Paris.

OF all the monsters that ever lived on the face of the earth, the
giant birds were perhaps the most grotesque. An emu or a
cassowary of the present day looks sufficiently strange by the side
of ordinary birds ; but “‘running birds” much larger than these
flourished not so very long ago in New Zealand and Madagascar,
and must at one time have inhabited areas now sunk below the
ocean waves.

The history of the discovery of these remarkable and truly
gigantic birds in New Zealand, and the famous researches of
Professor Owen, by which their structures have been made known,
must now engage our attention.

In the year 1839 Professor Owen exhibited, at a meeting of
the Zoological Society, part of a thigh-bone, or femur, 6 inches in
length, and 54 inches in its smallest circumference, with both
extremities broken off. This bone of an unknown struthious
bird was placed in his hands for examination, by Mr. Rule, with
the statement that it was found in New Zealand, where the
natives have a tradition that it belonged to a bird now extinct,
to which they give the name Moa. Similar bones, it was said,
were found buried on the banks of the rivers.

A minute description of this bone was given by the professor,

228 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

who pointed out the peculiar interest of this discovery on account
of the remarkable character of the existing fauna of New
Zealand, which still includes one of the most extraordinary birds
of the struthious order (‘‘running birds”), viz. the Apteryx, and
also because of the close analogy which the event indicated by
the present relic offers to the extinction of the Dodo ‘in the island
of Mauritius. On the strength of this one fragment he ventured
to assert that there once lived in New Zealand a bird as large as
the ostrich, and of the same order. ‘This conclusion was more
than confirmed by subsequent discoveries, which he anticipated ;
and, as we shall see, his estimate was a most moderate one, for the
extinct bird turned out to be considerably larger than the ostrich.

Later on he received from a friend in New Zealand news of the
discovery of more bones. In 1843 a collection of bones of large
birds was sent to Dr. Buckland, Dean of Westminster, by the Rev.
William Williams, a zealous and successful Church missionary,
long resident in New Zealand. On sending off his consignment
Mr. Williams wrote a letter, of which we give the greater part
below.

** Poverty Bay, New Zealand, February 28, 1842.

“DEAR SIR,

“Tt is about three years ago, on paying a visit to this
coast—south of the East Cape, that the natives told me of some
extraordinary monster, which they said was in existence in an
inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa ;
and they showed me at the same time some fragments of bone
taken out of the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this
creature, to which they gave the name Moa.

“When I came to reside in this neighbourhood I heard the
same story a little enlarged ; for it was said that this creature was
still existing at the said hill, of which the name is Wakapunake,
and that it is guarded by a reptile of the lizard species [genus] ;
but I could not learn that any of the present generation had
seen it. I still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered

GIANT BIRDS. 229

a large reward to any one who would catch me either the bird
@r its protector. . < .”

These offers procured the collection of a considerable number
of fossil bones, on which Mr. Williams, in his letter, makes the
following observations :—

“None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but
are all of them from the banks and beds of fresh-water rivers,
buried only a little distance in the mud. . . . All the streams are
in immediate connection with hills of some altitude.

“9. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time,
though not in the memory of any of the inhabitants ; for the bones
are found in the beds of the present streams, and do not appear
to have been brought into their present situation by the action
of any violent rush of waters.

*¢ 3. They existed in considerable numbers ”—an observation
which has since been abundantly confirmed.

“4, It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that
it was many years before it attained its full size.” This is
doubtful.

“5. The greatest height of the bird was probably not less than
fourteen or sixteen feet.” Fourteen is probably the extreme
limit.

“Within the last few days I have obtained a piece of informa-
tion worthy of notice. Happening to speak to an American
about these bones, he told me that the bird is still in existence
in the neighbourhood of Cloudy Bay, in Cook’s Straits, He said
that the natives there had mentioned to an Englishman belonging
to a whaling party that there was a bird of extraordinary size to
be seen only at night, on the side of a hill near the place, and
that he, with a native and a second Englishman, went to the spot;
that, after waiting some time, they saw the creature at a little
distance, which they describe as being about fourteen or sixteen
feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but
his companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of

230 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

them, ‘that they were satisfied with looking at the bird, when,
after a little time it took alarm, and strode off up the side of the
mountain.

‘“‘This incident might not have been worth mentioning, had it
not been for the extraordinary agreement in point of size of the
bird ”—with his deductions from the bones. “ Herve are the bones
which will satisfy you that such a bird Aas deen in existence ; and
there is said to be the “ving bird, the supposed size of which,
given by an independent witness, precisely agrees.” In spite,
however, of several tales of this kind, it is almost certain that
these birds are now quite extinct.

The leg-bones sent to London greatly exceeded in bulk those
of the largest horse. The leg-bone of a tall man is about 1 ft.
4 in. in length, and the thigh of O’Brien, the Irish giant, whose
skeleton, eight feet high, is mounted in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons, is not quite two feet. But some of the
leg-bones (tibiae) of Moa-birds measure as much as 39 inches.

In 1846 and 1847 Mr. Walter Mantell, eldest son of Dr.
Mantell, who had resided several years in New Zealand, explored
every known locality within his reach in the North Island. He
also went into the interior of the country and lived among the
natives for the purpose of collecting specimens, and of ascertain-
ing whether any of these gigantic birds were still in existence ;
resolving, if there appeared to be the least chance of success, to
penetrate into the unfrequented regions, and obtain a live Moa.
The information gathered from the natives offered no encourage-
ment to follow up the pursuit, but tended to confirm the idea
that this race of colossal bipeds was extinct. He succeeded,
however, in obtaining a most interesting collection of the bones
of Moa-birds, belonging to birds of various species and genera,
differing considerably in size. This collection was purchased by
the trustees of the British Museum for #200. Another collection
was made by Mr. Percy Earle from a submerged swamp, visible

GIANT BIRDS. 231

only at low water, situated on the south-eastern shore of the
Middle Island. This collection also was purchased by the
trustees for the sum of £130. Mr. Walter Mantell, who described
this locality, near Waikouaiti, seventeen miles north of Otago,
thinks it was originally a swamp or morass, in which the New
Zealand flax once grew luxuriantly. The appearance and position
of the bones are similar to those of the quadrupeds embedded in
peat-bogs, as, for instance, the great Inish elk (see next chapter).
They have acquired a rich umber colour, and their texture is firm
and tough. They still contain a large proportion of animal
matter. Unfortunately, even when Mr. Walter Mantell visited
this spot, the bed containing the bones was rapidly diminishing
from the inroads of the sea, and perhaps by this time is entirely
washed away. Mr. W. Mantell, however, obtained fine specimens
and feet of a large Moa-bird (Dinornis) in an upright position ;
and there seems to be little doubt that the unfortunate bird was
mired in the swamp, and perished on the spot.

The bones which he obtained from the North Island presented
a different appearance, being light and porous, and of a delicate
fawn-colour. They were embedded in loose volcanic sand.
Though perfect, they were as soft and plastic as putty, and
required most careful handling. They were dug out with great
care, and exposed to the air and sun to dry before they could
be packed up and removed.

The natives were a great source of trouble to him, for as
soon as they caught sight of his operations they came down in
swarms—men, women, and children, trampling on the bones
he had laid out to dry, and seizing on every morsel they could
get. The reason of this was that their cupidity and avarice
had been excited by the large rewards given by Europeans in
search of these treasures. Mixed with the bones he found
fragments of shells, and sometimes portions of the windpipe,
or trachea.

One portion of an egg which he found was large enough to

220 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

enable him to calculate the size of the egg when complete. ‘ As
a rough guess, I may say that acommon hat would have served as
an egg-cup for it : what a loss for the breakfast-table ! And if many
native traditions are worthy of credit, the ladies have cause to
mourn the extinction of the Moa: the long feathers of its crest
were by their remote ancestors prized above all other ornaments ;
those of the White Crane, which now bear the highest value, were
mere pigeon’s feathers in comparison.”

The total number of species of Moa once inhabiting New
Zealand was probably at least fifteen, and, judging from the
enormous accumulations of their bones found in some districts,
they must have been extremely common, and probably went
about in flocks. “ Birds of a feather flock together ” (proverb).

It is justly concluded, both from the vast number of bones
discovered, and from the fact of their great diversity in size and
other features, that they must have had the country pretty much
to themselves ; or, in other words, they enjoyed immunity from
the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds. In whatever way the
Moas originated in New Zealand, it is evident that the land was
a favourable one, for they multiplied enormously, and spread
from one end to the other. Not only was the number of
individuals very large, but they belonged (according to Mr. F. W.
Hutton) to no less than seven genera, containing twenty-five
different species, a remarkable fact which is unparalleled in any
other part of the world. The species described by Professor
Owen in his great work,! vary in size from 3 ft. to 12 or even
14 ft. in height, and differ greatly in their forms, some being
tall and slender, and probably swift-footed like the ostrich, whilst
others were short and had stout limbs, such as Dinornis elephanto-

1 Memoir on Zhe Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand. London, 1878.
The beautiful drawing by Mr. Smit (Plate XXIV.) is from a photograph in
this valuable work representing the late Sir Richard Owen standing in his
academic robes by the side of a specimen of the skeleton of the great Dinornis

maximus.

*sotoads Ja];eus W
*sngojuny goa "7

*yooy ZI WYSIOFY
*“SNIJUDTLE SIULOULCT

“Sauld-VOW

‘HIXX aLv1d

GIANT BIRDS. 233

pus (Fig. 56), which was undoubtedly a bird of great strength,
but very heavy-footed. Dinornis crassus also had stout limbs.
(See Plate XXIII.)

The Natural History Museum at South Kensington contains a
valuable collection of remains of Moa-birds. These skeletons may

Fic. 56.—A. Skeleton of the Elephant-footed Moa, Dinornis elephantopus,
from New Zealand. #&. Leg-bones of Dinornis giganteus, representing a
bird over 12 ft. high. 7, 4, footprints.

be seen in Gallery No, 2 (at the end of-the long gallery) in the

glass cases R, R’, and S._ Dinornis elephantopus (elephant-footed)

is in front of the window. In D. giganteus the leg-bone (see

Fig. 56) attains the enormous length of 3 ft., and in an allied

234 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

species it is even 39 in.! The next bone below (cannon bone)
is sometimes more than half the length of the leg-bone (tibia).

A skeleton in one of the glass cases has a height of about
rox ft., and it is concluded that the largest birds did not stand
less than 12 ft., and possibly were 14 ft. high!

Dinornis parvus (the dwarf Moa) was only three feet high.

In 1882 the trustees obtained, froma cave in Otago, the head,
neck, two legs, and feet of a Moa (D. didinus), having the skin,
still preserved in a dried state, covering the bones, and some
few feathers of a reddish hue still attached to the Jeg (Table case 12).
The rings of the windpipe may be seen 7z sz¢z, the sclerotic plates
of the eye, and the sheaths of the claws. One foot also shows
the hind claw still attached.

From traditions and other circumstances it is supposed that the
present natives of New Zealand came there not more than about
six hundred years ago, and there is reason to believe that the
ancient Maoris, when they landed, feasted on Moa-birds as long
as anyremained. Their extermination probably only dates back
to about the period at which the islands were thrice visited by
Captain Cook, 1769-1778. The Moa-bird is mixed up with their
songs and stories, and they even have a tradition of caravans
being attacked by them. Still, some people believe that they were
killed off by the race which inhabited New Zealand before the
Maoris came. But they must have been there up to a time not
far removed from the present. It is even said that the ‘runs ”
made by them were visible on the sides of the hills up to a few
years ago ; and possibly they may still be visible. The charred
bones and egg-shells have been found mixed with charcoal where
the native ovens were formerly made, and their eggs are said to
have been found in Maori graves. Mr. Hutton considers that in
the North Island they were exterminated three or four centuries
ago, while in the South Island they may have lingered a century
longer.

The nearest ally of the Moa is the small Apteryx, or Kiwi, of

GIANT BIRDS. 235

New Zealand, specimens of which may be seen at the Natural
History Museum, at the end of the long gallery devoted to living
birds. This bird, however, has a long pointed bill for probing in
the soft mud for worms, whereas the bill of the Moa was short
like that of an ostrich.

Another difference between the two is that, while the Kiwi
still retains the rudiments of wing-bones, the Moa had hardly a
vestige of such.

In Australia the remains have been found of a bird probably
related to the Cassowaries, but at present imperfectly known.
To this type of struthious, or running bird, the name Dromornis
has been given.

Now, it is a remarkable fact that remains of another giant
bird and its eggs have been found on the opposite side of the
great Indian Ocean, namely, in the island of Madagascar, the
existence of which was first revealed by its eggs, found sunk in
the swamps, but of which some imperfect bones were afterwards
discovered. One of these eggs was so enormous that its
diameter was nearly fourteen inches, and was reckoned to be as
big as three ostrich eggs, or 148 hen’s eggs! This means a
cubic content of more than two gallons! The natives search for
the eggs by probing in the soft mud of the swamps with long iron
rods. A large and perfect specimen of an egg of this bird, such
as was recently exhibited at a meeting of the Zoological Society,
is said to be worth £50. What the dimensions of A‘pyornis
were it is impossible to say, and it would be unsafe to venture a
calculation from the size of the egg.1. The reader who wishes
to see some of the remains of this huge bird may be referred to
the Natural History Museum. In wall case No. 25, Gallery 2
(Geological Department), may be seen a tibia and plaster casts of
other bones ; also two entire eggs, many broken pieces, and one

1 From the size of a femur and tibia of fyornzs preserved in the Paris
Museum, it could not have been less in stature than the Dinornis elephantopus
of New Zealand.

236 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

plaster cast of an egg found in certain surface deposits in
Madagascar. In the same case may be seen bones of the Dodo
from the isle of Mauritius. Unlike New Zealand, Madagascar
possesses no living wingless bird. But in the neighbouring island
of Mauritius the Dodo has been exterminated less than three
centuries ago. The little island of Rodriguez, in the same
geographical province, has also lost its wingless Solitaire.

It will thus be seen that we have three distinct groups of giant
land birds—the Moas, the Dromornis, and the Apyornis,—occu-
pying areas at present widely separated by the ocean.

This raises the difficult but very interesting question, how they
got there; and the same applies to their living ancestors. The
ostrich proper, Struthio camelus, inhabits Africa and Arabia ; but
there is evidence from history to show that it formerly existed in
Beluchistan and Central Asia. And, going still further back, the
geological record informs us that, in the Pliocene period, they
inhabited what is now Northern India. In Australia we have
the Cassowary (Casuarius) and the Emeu (Dromaius); in New
Zealand, the Apteryx (or Kiwi). Now, as none of these birds can
either fly or swim, it is impossible that they could have reached
these regions separated as they now are; and it is hardly
likely that they arose spontaneously in each district from
totally different ancestors. But the new doctrine of evolution
affords a key to the problem, and tells us that they all sprang
from a common ancestor, of the struthious type (probably
inhabiting the great northern continental area), and gradually
migrated south along land areas now submerged. In this way
we get some idea of the vast changes that have taken place in
the geography of the world during later geological periods.
Perhaps they were compelled to move south until they reached
abodes free from carnivorous enemies. Having done so, they
evidently flourished abundantly, especially in New Zealand, where
there are so few mammals, except those recently introduced
by man.

GIANT BIRDS. 237

In North America Professor Cope has reported a large wingless
fossil bird from the Eocene strata of New Mexico. In England
we have two such—namely, the Dasornis, from the London Clay
of Sheppey (Eocene period), and the Gastornis, from the Wool-
wich beds near Croydon, and from Paris (also Eocene).

It will thus be seen that big struthious birds have a long
history, going far back into the Tertiary era, and that they once
had a much wider geographical range than they have now.
Doubtless, future discoveries will tend to fill up the gaps between
all these various types, both living and extinct, and to connect
them together in one chain of evolution.

The last great find of Moa-birds in New Zealand took place
only last year, and was reported by a correspondent to the
Scotsman (November 13, 1891), writing from Oamaru. In the
letter that appeared at the above date, our friend Mr. H. O.
Forbes announces the discovery of an immense number of bones,
estimated to represent at least five hundred Moas! They were
found in the neighbourhood of Oamaru. And, after some pre-
liminary remarks, he continues as follows :—

“The part of the field on which the remains were found bears
no traces of any physical disturbance—e.g. of earthquake, or
flood, or hurricane—that would account for the sudden destruc-
tion of a flock or ‘mob’ of Moas. The Moa, when alive, carried
in its crop—like our own hens—a quantity of stones to serve as
a private coffee-mill for digestive grinding; stones which, being
somewhat in proportion to the magnitude of the giant bird, form,
when found in one place, a ‘heap’ of stones which are easily
identified as a Moa heap, and nothing else. And in the present
case the heap was here and there found in such relation to the
bones of an individual bird as to show that the Moa must have
died on that spot, and remained there quietly undisturbed.
Further, the number of birds represented by the exhumed remains
is so great that the living birds could not have stood together on
the space of ground on which the remains were found lying. And

238 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

there is not on any of the bones any trace of such violence as must
have left its mark if the death of the birds had been caused by a
Moa-hunting mankind. Finally, it does not appear that in this
particular district there ever has been, at any traceable period
of the physical history of the land, a forest vegetation, such as
might suggest that the catastrophe was caused by fire.

“The question how to account for the slaughter is raised like-
wise by two previous finds of Moa bones. The first of these, at
Glenmark, in Canterbury, was the most memorable, because,
being the first, it made the deepest impression. The second
great find, far inland, up the Molineux River, otherwise the
Clutha, was beneath the diluvium that is now worked by the
gold-digger. The spot must have been the site of a lagoon,
at one point of which there was a spring. Round about this
point there were found the remains of, it was reckoned, five
hundred individual Moas. The bones were quietly Zaid there,
with, in some cases, the ‘heap’ of digestive stones zm situ along
with the skeletons. And Mr. Booth, whose elaborate investiga-
tion of this case is recorded in the annual volume of Zhe Mew
Zealand Institute, suggested the theory that the climate of New
Zealand was changing to a degree of cold intolerable to Moa
nature ; and that the birds, fleeing from its rigour, sought comfort
in the spring of water, sheltering their featherless breast in it, and
so dozing out of this troubled life. And in this new find the
wonder comes back unmitigated, as a mystery unsolved. For
here is no bog deep enough, as in the first instance, nor lagoon
spring, as in the second, to account for that multitude of giant
birds dying in one spot.

“‘ Another curious puzzle is, on close inspection, found every-
where in the Moa bone discoveries. It is hardly possible to
make sure that the bones of any one complete Moa skeleton all
belong to the same individual. I heard some one say the other
day that it is not certain that any Moa in any earthly museum has
all his own bones, and only his own.

GIANT BIRDS. 239

*“‘ A main interest of such a find lies not in the power of supply-
ing museums with specimens of what is rapidly disappearing from
the face of the world, but in the possibility of finding species
of Moa that have not hitherto been tabulated. Whether any
new species have been brought to light on this occasion the
experts will not say until there has been time to make a careful
study of the bones, nor do they venture on any theory to account
for there being so many individual birds dead in that one place,
where there appears to be no room for the explanations offered
in connection with previous great finds. The date of these birds
appears to be earlier than that of the coming of the Maoris into
New Zealand, say five or six hundred years ago, as the Maori
memory appears to have in it no trace of feasting on these giant
Moas, but celebrates the rat-hunt in its ancient heroic song. And
your readers may picture their appearance by noticing the fact
that one of the recently found bones must have belonged to a
Moa fourteen feet high !”

Nore.—For further information on this interesting subject, the reader is
referred to a paper in WVatural Science, October, 1892, by Mr. F. W. Hutton.
In a valuable paper, read before the Royal Geographical Society by Mr. H. O.
Forbes, March 13, 1893, the lecturer alluded to the important fact that bone
belonging to big extinct struthious birds have been discovered in Patagonia.
This is interesting news as bearing upon the theory of a former Antarctic con-
tinent connecting Australia and New Zealand with South Africa, and perhaps
even with South America. After the lecture, to which we listened with great
interest, the subject was discussed by Mr. Slater, Dr. Giinther, and Dr.
Henry Woodward. For ourselves we can see no great difficulty in accepting
the theory that such a continent once existed, though it is out of harmony
with the now rather fashionable theory of ‘‘the permanence of ocean basins ”
—a doctrine which seems to have been pressed too far.

CHAPTER Qova.

THE GREAT IRISH DEER AND STELLER’S SEA-COW.

** And, above all others, we should protect and hold sacred those types,
Nature’s masterpieces, which are first singled out for destruction on account
of their size, or splendour, or rarity, and that false detestable glory which is
accorded to their most successful slayers. In ancient times the spirit of life
shone brightest in these; and when others that shared the earth with them
were taken by death they were left, being more worthy of perpetuation. Like
immortal flowers they have drifted down to us on the ocean of time, and their
strangeness and beauty bring to our imaginations a dream and a picture of
that unknown world, immeasurably far removed, where man was not: and
when they perish, something of the gladness goes out of nature, and the
sunshine loses something of its brightness.’—W. H. Hupson, in Zhe
Naturalist in La Plata.

AmonG the extinct animals of prehistoric times the “Great
Irish Elk,” ? as it is generally called, deserves special notice, both
from the enormous size of its antlers, and from the fact that its
remains are exceedingly plentiful in Ireland.

This magnificent creature, so well depicted by our artist
(Plate XXV.), was, however, by no means confined to Ireland ;
its remains are found in many parts of Great Britain, particularly
in cave deposits, and also on the Continent. Some writers think
that it was contemporary with men in Ireland ; it may have been
so, but at present the question cannot be considered as proved.
Mr. R. J. Ussher, who found its remains in a cave near Cappagh,
Cappoquin, thinks he has obtained evidence to show that it was

1 The term ‘Elk ” is misleading, for it is not an elk (a/ces) at all, but a
true Cervus (stag). It should be called ‘‘ the Great Irish Deer.”

GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLER'S SEA-COW. 24%

hunted by man at the time when he hunted reindeer in this part
of Europe, but the age of the strata containing the remains is
doubtful. Again, there is a mb in the Dublin Museum with a
perforation which is sometimes taken to be the result of a wound
from a dart, arrow, or spear; but the wound may have been
inflicted by one of the sharp tynes in a fight between two bucks.

Dr. Hart mentions the discovery of a human body in gravel,
under eleven feet of peat, soaked in bog-water, in good preserva-
tion, and completely clothed in antique garments of hair, which
it has been conjectured might be that of the Great Deer. But if
some individual animal had perished and left its body under the
like circumstances, its hide and hair ought equally to have been
preserved. Dr. Molyneux, to whom we owe the first account of
its discovery, says that its extinction in Ireland has occurred “so
many ages past, as there remains among us not the least record
in writing, or any manner of tradition, that makes so much as
mention of its name; as that most laborious inquirer into the
pretended ancient but certainly fabuious history of this country,
Mr. Roger O’Flaherty, the author of Ogygza, has lately informed
mes; |

In the romance of the ‘‘ Niebelungen,” now immortalised by
Wagner, which was written in the thirteenth century, the word
shelch occurs, and is applied to one of the beasts slain in a great
hunt a few hundred years before that time in Germany. This
word has been cited by some naturalists as probably signifying
the Great Irish Deer. But this is mere conjecture, and the word
might apply to some big Red Deer. ‘The total silence of Cesar
and Tacitus respecting such remarkable animals renders it highly
improbable that they were known to the ancient Britons.

Two entire skeletons of the male, with antlers measuring a little
over nine feet from tip to tip, and one skeleton of the hornless
doe, are to be seen set up in the middle of the long gallery No. 1
at the Natural History Museum. The drawing in Fig. 57 is from

» Philosophical Transactions, vol. xix. p. 499.

242 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

a specimen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
(Lincoln’s Inn Fields). The height of this specimen to the
summit of the antlers is 10 ft. 4 in. ‘The span of the antlers,
from tip to tip, is 8 ft. (in the living Moose it is only q ft). The

~ 7,

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Fic. 57.—Skeleton of Great Irish Deer, Cervus giganteus, from shell-marl
beneath the peat, Ireland. Antlers over 9 feet across.

weight of the skull and antlers together is 76 lbs., but those of
_ another specimen belonging to the Royal Dublin Society weigh
87 lbs. This great extinct deer surpassed the largest Wapite
(Cervus Canadensis) in size, and its antlers were very much larger,

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GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLERS SEA-COW. 243

wider, and heavier. In some cases the antlers have measured
more than 11 ft. from tip to tip. The body of the animal, as
well as its antlers, were larger and stronger than in any existing
deer. The limbs are stouter, as might be expected from the
great weight of the head and neck. Another and more striking
feature is the great size of the vertebre of the neck; this was
necessary in order to form a column capable of supporting the
head and its massive antlers. (See Plate XXV.)

The first tolerably perfect skeleton was found in the Isle of
Man, and presented by the Duke of Athol to the Edinburgh
Museum. It was figured in Cuvier’s Ossemens Fossiles. Besides
those already mentioned at South Kensington and Dublin, there
is one in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge.

It cannot be doubted that, like all existing deer, the animal
shed its antlers periodically, and such shed antlers have been
found. When it is recollected that all the osseous matter of
which they are composed must have been drawn from the blood
carried along certain arteries to the head, in the course of a few
months, our wonder may well be excited at the vigorous circula-
tion that took place in these parts.

In the Red Deer the antlers, weighing about 24 lbs., are

developed in the course of about ten weeks ; but what is that
| compared to the growth of over 80 lbs. weight in some three or
four months ?

It is a mistake to suppose that the remains discovered in
Ireland were found in peat; they occur not in the peat, but in
shell-marls and in clays under the peat. This is an important
point. or if the remains were found in the peat, they
would prove that the Great Deer survived into a later period;
instead of being (as is believed from geological evidence) con-
temporary with the Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros in this
country, and then disappearing from view. As already stated,
it existed on the Continent, and may there have been exter-

minated by man.

244 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Mr. W. Williams, who has explored several peat-bogs in
Ireland, marking the site of ancient lakes, and found many
specimens in beds underlying the peat, has given much interest-
ing information bearing upon the question of the period when the
Great Deer inhabited Ireland, and the manner in which it was
preserved in the lake-beds.1. He spent ten weeks in 1876-77,
excavating deer remains in the bog of Ballybetagh, and subse-
quently made similar excavations in the counties of Mayo,
Limerick, and Meath. These peat-bogs occupy the basins of
lakes, the deeper hollows of which have long since been silted up
with marls, clays, and sands, and in this silt, or mud, the plants
which produced the peat grew. In all the bogs examined he
found a general resemblance in the order of succession of the
beds, with only slight variations in the nature of the materials
such as might be easily accounted for by differences in the
surrounding rocks. In these deposits the geologist may read, as
in a book, the successive changes in climate that have taken
place since the time when the country was deeply covered with
snow and ice during the Glacial period.

He found at the bottom of the old Ballybetagh Lake, and
resting on the true Boulder Clay (a product of the ice-sheet), a
fine stiff clay which seems to have been brought in by the action
of rain washing fine clay out of the Boulder Clay, that nearly
covered the land, and depositing it in the lake. This action
probably took place during a period of thaw, when the climate
was damp, from the melting of so much ice, and the rainfall con-
siderable. Then the climate improved, the cold of the Glacial
period passed away, and the climate became warm. During this
phase the next stratum was formed, consisting chiefly of vege-
table remains. The summers must have been unusually warm,
dry, and favourable to the growth of vegetation on the bed of the
lake. About this time the Great Irish Deer appeared on the
scene, for its remains were found resting on this layer, or stratum,

+: Geological Magazine, new series, vol. viii. (1881), p. 354-

GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLER'S SEA-COW. 245

in a brownish clay. This deposit also was the product of a time
when the climate was mild. It is a true lake-sediment, with
seams of clay and fine sand, the latter having been brought down
by heavy rainfall from the hills, just as at the present day.

Now, we have to consider how these Great Deer got buried in
this deposit. How did they get drowned? They may have gone
into the lakes to escape from wolves, or possibly to escape from
ancient Britons (but that is still doubtful). Perhaps they went
into the water to wallow, as is usual with deer, or they may have
ventured to swim the lakes (see p. 19). To enter the lake from
a sandy shore would be easy enough, but, on reaching the other
side, they might find a soft mud instead, into which their small
feet would sink ; and the more they plunged and struggled, the
worse became their plight, until at last, weary and exhausted, the
heavy antlers pressed their heads down under the water, and
they were drowned.

It does not follow, according to this theory, that either the
entire animal ought to be found, or even its legs, sticking in the
clay. For a few days it might remain so, but the motion of
the waters of the lake would sway the body to and fro, while the
gases due to decomposition would render it buoyant, and perhaps
raise it bodily off the bottom. ‘Then it might float before the
wind, its head hanging down, till it reached the lee-side of the lake.
Then the antlers would get fastened in mud near the shore, thus
mooring the body until at last so much of the flesh of the neck
had decayed that the body got separated from it, leaving the
head and antlers near the shore.

Nearly a hundred heads had been found in this lake previous
to Mr. Williams’s explorations, and yet scarcely six skeletons,
At first it is somewhat puzzling to account for this scarcity of
skeletons compared with heads; but very likely the bodies, minus
their heads, were carried right out of the lake, down a river, and
perhaps reached the sea or got stranded somewhere down the
river in such a way that the bones were never covered up. But

246 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

in the Limerick bogs heads and skeletons were often found
together. In that district the lakes were probably shallow and
with but a feeble current, and so the body never floated away.
This explanation by Mr. Williams seems satisfactory.

He reports that the female skulls were rarely met with. Either
they were more timid in swimming lakes, or, having no antlers,
they may have succeeded in getting out, or the care of their
young ones may have kept them out of the lakes during the
summer months. The clay in which the remains occur is suc-
ceeded by another bed of pure clay, which ever yields any skulls
or bones. This, Mr. Williams thinks, was deposited at a time
when the climate was more or less severe, and the musk-ox,
reindeer, and other arctic animals came down from more northern
regions, even down to the south of France. He concludes that
this period marks the extinction of the Great Deer in Ireland,
whether rightly or wrongly it is hard to say. Many observers are
inclined to think that it lived on to a later period. An interest-
ing fact, having some bearing on the question, is this: that the
bones in some cases even yet retain their marrow in the state of
a fatty substance, which will burn with a clear lambent flame.
Evidence such as this seems to point to a more recent date for
its extinction.

STELLER’s SEA-Cow.!

The Sirenia of the present day form a remarkable group of
aquatic herbivorous animals, really quite distinct from the
Cetacea (whales and dolphins), although sometimes erroneously
classed with them. In the former group are the Dugong and the
Manatee. These creatures pass their whole life in the water,
inhabiting the shallow bogs, estuaries, and lagoons, and large
rivers, but never venturing far away from the shore. ‘They browse

1 For fuller information, see the Gvological Magazine, decade iii. vol. il,
p- 412. Paper by Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S,

GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLERS SEA-COW. 247

beneath the surface on aquatic plants, as the terrestrial herbivorous
mammals feed upon the green pastures on land.

Not a few of the tales of mermen and mermaids owe their
origin to these creatures, as well as to seals, and even walruses.
The Portuguese and Spaniards give the Manatee a name signifying
““Woman-fish,” and the Dutch call the Dugong the “Little
Bearded Man.” A very little imagination, and a memory only
for the marvellous, doubtless sufficed to complete the meta-
morphosis of the half-woman, or man, half-fish, into a siren, a
mermaid, ora merman. Hence the general name Sirenia.

The Manatee (J/anatus) inhabits the west coast and rivers of
tropical Africa, and the east coast and rivers of tropical America,
the West Indies, and Florida.

The Dugong (/adicore) extends along the Red Sea coasts, the
shores of India, and the adjacent islands, and goes as far as the
northern and eastern coasts of Australia.

The most remarkable Sirenian is the Rhytina gigas, or
“‘Steller’s Sea-Cow.” Early in 1885 the trustees of the British
Museum acquired a nearly complete skeleton of this animal, now
extinct, from peat deposits in Behring’s Island, of Pleistocene

1

CIES BES EU Re Be, Be |

Fic. 58.—Skeleton of Rhytina gigas (Steller’s ‘‘Sea-Cow”), from a peat
deposit, Behring’s Island.
age. Formerly it was abundant along the shores of Kamtchatka,
the Kurile Islands, and Alaska. It was first discovered by the
German naturalist, Steller, who, in company with Vitus Behring,
a captain in the Russian Navy and a celebrated navigator of the
northern seas, was with his vessel and crew cast away upon
Behring’s Island (where Behring died) in 1741. Steller’s original

248 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

description is preserved in the AZemoirs of the Academy of Sciences
St. Petersburg. He saw it alive during his long enforced residence
on the island. In the course of forty years, 1742-1782, it
appears to have been exterminated, probably for the sake of its
flesh and hide, around both Behring’s Island and Copper Island,
to the shores of which it was, in Steller’s time, limited.

Fig. 58 shows its skeleton, rg ft. 6 in. long, now preserved in
the Geological Collection at South Kensington (Glass-case N).
The skeletons are found, in the islands, at a distance from the
shore in old raised beaches and peat-mosses, deeply buried and
thickly overgrown with grass. They are discovered by boring
into the peat with an iron rod, just as timber is found in Irish
peat-bogs. (See restoration, Plate XX VI.)

Steller records that when he came to Behring’s Island, the Sea-
cows fed in the shallows along the shore, and collected in herds
like cattle. Every few minutes they raised their heads in order
to get more air before descending again to browse on the thick
sea-weed (probably Laminaria) surrounding the coast. With
regard to their habits, they were very slow in their movements :
mild and inoffensive in disposition. Their colour was dark
brown, sometimes varied with spots. The skin was naked; but
thick, hard, and rugged. They are said to have sometimes
reached a length of thirty-five feet, when full grown. Most of
their time was spent in browsing, and whilst so occupied, were
not easily disturbed. Their attachment to each other was great,
so that when one was harpooned, the others made great attempts
to rescue it. According to Steller, they were so heavy that it
required forty men with ropes to drag the body of one to land.

When, in 1743, the news of the discovery of Behring Island
reached Kamtchatka, several expeditions were fitted out for the
purpose of hunting the sea-cow and the various fur-bearing
animals, such as the sea-otter, fur seal, and blue fox, which are
found there; and very soon many whaling vessels began to stop
there to lay in a supply of sea-cow meat for food. So great was

*soyoul 9 Jaay 61 YISUNT “purys] sSuryog ye aayjaig Aq sate punoy ‘IAXX FLVIg
*SVDID VNILAHY ‘MO00-Vvas S VaATTALS

GREAT IRISH DEER—STELLER’S SEA-COW. 249

the destruction wrought by these whalers and fur-hunters that
in 1754, only thirteen years after its discovery, the sea-cow had
become practically exterminated. In 1768, according to the
investigations of Dr. L. Stejneger of the U. S. National Museum,
Washington, who has made a most careful study of the question,
this large and important marine mammal became wholly extinct,
the last individual ever seen alive having been killed in that year ;
and the fate which overtook Rhytina so speedily has almost
become that of the buffalo, and will as certainly become that of
the fur seal unless it be protected.

It may interest the reader, especially if he be a traveller, to
know that, besides the fine specimen of Rhytina in the Natural
History Museum, already alluded to, good skeletons are pos-
sessed by the Museums of St. Petersburg, Helsingsfors (Finland),
Stockholm, U. S. National Museum, Washington, as well as
portions of skeletons by other museums.

The Sirenians are an ancient race, for their remains have
been found in Tertiary strata, of various ages, from Eocene to
Pleistocene, over the greater part of Europe—in England,
Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy; also
near Cairo. In the New World, fossil Sirenians have been found
in South Carolina, New Jersey, and Jamaica.

Another European species is the Halitherium, from the Miocene
rocks of Hesse-Darmstadt, of which a cast may be seen in the
Natural History Museum, South Kensington. Its length is 7 ft.
8in. The teeth in this form resembled those of the Dugong.

The Rhytina was probably intermediate between the Dugong
and the Manatee, judging from the casts of its brain-cavity.
Its brain was very small considering the size of the animals.
Altogether, as many as fourteen fossil genera and thirty species
are known. Evidently, then, the old Sirenia were once a much
more flourishing race. At present, they are confined exclusively
to the tropical regions of the earth, and their past distribution,
as revealed to the geologists, adds one more proof to the now

250 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

well-established fact, that throughout most of the Tertiary era
the climate of northern latitudes was very much warmer than
now—in fact, sub-tropical. What cause, or causes, brought about
so great a change, we cannot stay to consider here.

In conclusion, it only remains to express a hope that the
reader may have been interested in our humble endeavours to
describe some of the largest, most strange, and wonderful forms
of life that in remote ages have found a home on this planet.
And perhaps a few of our readers may be induced to add a new
and never-failing interest to their lives by searching in the stony
record for traces of the world’s “lost creations.” If so, our
labour will not have been in vain.

Periods.

APPENDIX VI.

TABLE OF STRATIFIED ROCKS.

Systems.

Formations.

—

A.

Quaternary.

—————————EEs

SECONDARY, OR MESOZOIC.

—_——

RECENT

PLEISTOCENE

Terrestrial, Alluvial, Estuarine, and
Marine Beds of Historic, Iron,
Bronze, and Neolithic Ages

Peat, Alluvium, Loess

Valley Gravels, Brickearths

Cave-deposits

Raised Beaches

Paleolithic Age

Boulder Clay and Gravels

PLIOCENE
MIOCENE
EOCENE

Norfolk Forest-bed Series
Norwich and Red Crags
Coralline Crag (Diestian)
(Eningen Beds Freshwater, etc.
Fluvio-marine Series (Oligocene)
Bagshot Beds (Nummulitic
London Tertiaries } Beds)

CRETACEOUS

Maestricht Beds
Chalk

Upper Greensand
Gault

Lower Greensand F
Neoacomian
Wealden

—— — —_— | — ee eae

Dominant
type, Man

Dominant
types,

Birds and

Mammals

JURASSIC

TRIASSIC

Purbeck Beds

Portland Beds

Kimmeridge Clay (Solenhofen Beds)
Corallian Beds

Oxford Clay

Great Oolite Series

Inferior Oolite Series

Lias

Rheetic Beds
Keuper
Muschelkalk
Bunter

ee ee

Dominant

type,
Reptilia

252 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

TABLE OF STRATIFIED RocKks—Continued.

wn
2
a Systems.
vo
a

Formations.

PERMIAN or
DYAS

CARBONIFEROUS

RED SANDSTONE.

if

|

| DEVONIAN & OLD
| SILURIAN
4

ORDOVICIAN

CAMBRIAN

PRIMARY, OR PALA!OZOIC.

CC

EOZOIC—
ARCHEZAN

|
|

Red Sandstone, Marl Zech-

Magnesian Limestone, etc. stein

Red Sandstone and Conglomerate
Rothliegende

Coal Measures and Millstone Grit

Carboniferous Limestone Series

Upper Old Red Sandstone

Devonian

Lower Old Red Sandstone

Ludlow Series

Wenlock Series

Llandovery Series

May FIill Series

Bala and Caradoc Series

Llandeilo Series

Llanvirn Series

Arenig and Skiddaw Series

Tremadoc Slates

Lingula Flags

Menevian Series

Harlech and Longmynd Series

|
|
|

Pebidian, Arvonian, and Dimetian
Huronian and Laurentian

Dominant

type,
Fishes

Dominant

type, In-
vertebrata

—_— —— .-—.1100€0 FO ll ll

APPENDIA® Tr

THE GREAT SEA-SERPENT.

Mr. HENRY LEE, formerly naturalist to the Brighton Aquarium,
discusses the question of “ The Great Sea-Serpent” in an interesting
little book, entitled Sea Monsters Unmasked, illustrated (1883), published
as one of the Handbooks issued in connection with the International
Fisheries Exhibition. He goes fully into the history of the subject,
and shows how some of the appearances described may be accounted
for ; but yet is inclined to think that there may exist in the sea animals
of great size unknown to science, and concludes as follows :—

“This brings us face to face with the question, ‘Is it, then, so im-
possible that there may exist some great sea creature, or creatures,
with which zoologists are hitherto unacquainted, that it is necessary
in every case to regard the authors of such narratives as wilfully
untruthful or mistaken in their observations, if their descriptions are
irreconcilable with something already known?’ I, for one, am of the
opinion that there is no such impossibility. Calamaries or squids of
the ordinary size have, from time immemorial, been amongst the
commonest and best known of marine animals in many seas ; but
only a few years ago any one who expressed his belief in one formi-
dable enough to capsize a boat or pull a man out of one was derided
for his credulity, although voyagers had constantly reported that in
the Indian seas they were so dreaded that the natives always carried
hatchets with them in their canoes, with which to cut off the arms or
tentacles of these creatures, if attacked by them. We now know that
their existence is no fiction; for individuals have been captured
measuring more than fifty feet, and some are reported to have
measured eighty feet in total length. As marine snakes some feet
in length, and having fin-like tails adapted for swimming, abound
over an extensive range, and are frequently met with far at sea, I
cannot regard it as impossible that some of these also may attain to
an abnormal and colossal development. Dr. Andrew Wilson, who

254 EXTINCI MONSTERS.

has given much attention to this subject, is of the opinion that ‘in
this huge development of ordinary forms we discover the true and
natural law of the production of the giant serpent of the sea. It
goes far at any rate towards accounting for its supposed appearance.
I am convinced that whilst naturalists have been searching amongst
the vertebrata for a solution of the problem, the great unknown, and
therefore unrecognised, Calamaries, by their elongated cylindrical
bodies and peculiar mode of swimming, have played the part of the
sea-serpent in many a well-authenticated incident. In other cases,
such as those mentioned by ‘ Pontoppidan’ (Azstory of Norway), the
supposed vertical undulations of the snake seen out of water have
been the burly bodies of so many porpoises swimming in line—the
connecting undulations beneath the surface have been supplied by
the imagination. The dorsal fins of basking sharks, as figured by
Dr. Andrew Wilson, may have furnished the ‘ridge of fins ;’ an
enormous conger is not an impossibility ; a giant turtle may have
done duty, with its propelling flippers and broad back ; or a marine
snake of enormous size may really have been seen. But if we accept
as accurate the observations recorded (which I certainly do not in all
cases, for they are full of errors and mistakes), the difficulty is not
entirely met, even by this last admission, for the instances are very
few in which an Ophidian proper—a true serpent—is indicated.
There has seemed to be wanting an animal having a long snake-like
neck, a small head, and a slender body, and propelling itself by
paddles.

“ The similarity of such an animal to the Plesiosaurus of old was
remarkable. That curious compound reptile, which has been com-
pared with ‘a snake threaded through the body of a turtle,’ is
described by Dean Buckland as having ‘the head of a lizard, the
teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length resembling the body
of a serpent, the ribs of a cameleon, and the paddles of a whale.’ In
the number of its cervical vertebrz (about thirty-three) it surpasses
that of the longest-necked bird, the swan.

“ The form and probable movements of this ancient Saurian agree so
markedly with some of the accounts given of ‘the great sea-serpent,’
that Mr. Edward Newman advanced the opinion that the closest
affinities of the latter would be found to be with the Enaliosaurians,
or Marine Lizards, whose fossil remains are so abundant in the
Oolite and the Lias. This view has been taken by other writers, and
emphatically by Mr. Gosse. Neither he nor Mr. Newman insist that
‘the great unknown’ must be the Plesiosaurus itself. Mr. Gosse

APPENDIX. 255

says, ‘I should not look for any species, scarcely for any genus, to be
perpetuated from the Oolitic period to the present. Admitting the
actual continuation of the order Enaliosauria, it would be, I think,
quite in conformity with general analogy to find some salient features
of several extinct forms.’

“The form and habits of the recently recognised gigantic cuttles
account for so many appearances which, without knowledge of them,
were inexplicable when Mr. Gosse and Mr. Newman wrote, that I
think this theory is not forced upon us. Mr. Gosse well and clearly
sums up the evidence as follows: ‘Carefully comparing the inde-
pendent narratives of English witnesses of known character and
position, most of them being officers under the Crown, we have a
creature possessing the following characteristics: (1) The general
form of a serpent ; (2) great length, say above sixty feet ; (3) head
considered to resemble that of a serpent; (4) neck from twelve to
sixteen inches in diameter ; (5) appendages on the head, neck, or
back, resembling a crest or mane (considerable discrepancy in details) ;
(6) colour, dark brown or green, streaked or spotted with white ; (7)
swims at surface of the water with a rapid or slow movement, the head
and neck projected and elevated above the surface ; (8) progression
steady and uniform, the body straight, but capable of being thrown
into convolutions ; (9) spouts in the manner of a whale; (10) likea
long “nun-buoy.”’ He concludes with the question, ‘To which of
the recognised classes of created beings can this huge rover of the
ocean be referred ?’

“T reply, ‘to the Cephalopoda.’ There is not one of the above
judiciously summarised characteristics that is not supplied by the
great Calamary, and its ascertained habits and peculiar mode of
locomotion.

“Only a geologist can fully appreciate how enormously the balance
of probability is contrary to the supposition that any of the gigantic
marine Saurians of the secondary deposits should have continued to
live up to the present time. And yet I am bound to say that this
does not amount to an impossibility, for the evidence against it is
entirely negative. Nor is the conjecture that there may be in exist-
ence some congeners of these great reptiles inconsistent with
zoological science. Dr. J. E. Gray, late of the British Museum, a
strict zoologist, is cited by Mr. Gasse as having long ago expressed
his opinion that some undescribed form exists which is intermediate
between the tortoises and the serpents.” (This is quoted by Mr. Lee
in a footnote.)

256 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

“Professor Agassiz, too, is adduced by a correspondent of the
Zoologist (p. 2395), as having said concerning the present existence of
the Enaliosaurian type, that ‘it would be in precise conformity with
analogy that such an animal should exist in the American seas, as he
had found numerous instances in which the fossil forms of the old
world were represented by living types in the new.’

“On this point, Mr. Newman records in the Zoologist (p. 2356),
an actual testimony which he considers ‘in all respects the most
interesting natural history fact of the present century.’ He writes—

““¢ Captain the Hon. George Hope states that when in H.M.S. Fy,
in the Gulf of California, the sea being perfectly calm, he saw at the
bottom a large marine animal with the head and general figure of the
alligator, except that the neck was much longer, and that instead of
legs the creature had four large flappers, somewhat like those of
turtles, the anterior pair being larger than the posterior ; the creature
was distinctly visible, and all its movements could be observed with
ease ; itappeared to be pursuing its prey at the bottom of the sea ;
its movements were somewhat serpentine, and an appearance of
annulations, or ring-like divisions of the body, was distinctly per-
ceptible. Captain Hope made this relation in company, and as a
matter of conversation. When I heard it from the gentleman to
whom it was narrated, I inquired whether Captain Hope was
acquainted with those remarkable fossil animals, Ichthyosauri and
Plesiosauri, the supposed forms of which so nearly corresponded with
what he describes as having seen alive, and I cannot find that he had
heard of them; the alligator being the only animal he mentioned as
bearing a partial similarity to the creature in question.’

“Unfortunately, the estimated dimensions of this creature are not
given.

“That negative evidence alone is an unsafe basis for argument
against the existence of unknown animals, the following illustrations
will show :-—

“ During the deep-sea dredgings of H.M.S. Lightning, Porcupine,
and Challenger, many new species of mollusca and others, which had
been supposed to have been extinct ever since the Chalk, were brought
to light ; and by the deep-sea trawlings of the last-mentioned ship
there have been brought up from great depths fishes of unknown
species, and which could not exist near the surface, owing to the dis-
tention and rupture of their air-bladder when removed from the
pressure of deep water.

‘““Mr. Gosse mentions that the ship in which he made the voyage

APPENDIX. 257

‘

to Jamaica was surrounded in the North Atlantic, for seventeen con-
tinuous hours, by a troop of whales of large size, of an undescribed
species, which on no other occasion has fallen under scientific
observation. Unique specimens of other Cetaceans are also recorded.

“We have evidence, to which attention has been directed by Mr.
A. D. Bartlett, that ‘even on land there exists at least one of the
largest mammals, probably in thousands, of which only one indi-
vidual has been brought to notice, namely, the hairy-eared, two-
horned rhinoceros (2. Laszot7/s), now in the Zoological Gardens,
London. It was captured in 1868, at Chittagong, in India, where for
years collectors and naturalists have worked and published lists of the
animals met with, and yet no knowledge of this great beast was ever
before obtained, nor is there any portion of one in any museum. It
remains unique.

“ T have arrived at the following conclusions: 1. That without strain-
ing resemblances, or casting a doubt upon narratives not proved to be
erroneous, the various appearances of the supposed ‘great sea-
serpent’ may now be nearly all accounted for by the forms and habits
of known animals; especially if we admit, as proposed by Dr.
Andrew Wilson, that some of them, including the marine snakes, may,
like the cuttles, attain to extraordinary size. 2. That to assume that
naturalists have perfect cognisance of every existing marine animal of
large size, would be quite unwarrantable. It appears to me more
than probable that many marine animals, unknown to science, and
some of them of gigantic size, may have their ordinary habitat in the
sea, and only occasionally come to the surface ; and I think it not
impossible that amongst them may be marine snakes of greater
dimensions than we are aware of, and even a creature having close
affinities with the old sea-reptiles whose fossil skeletons tell of their
magnitude and abundance in past ages.

“Tt is most desirable that every supposed appearance of ‘the Great
Sea-Serpent’ shall be faithfully noted and described ; and I hope
that no truthful observer will be deterred from reporting such an
occurrence by fear of the disbelief of naturalists or the ridicule of
witlings.”

wn

APPENDIX TIL

LIST OF BRITISH LOCALITIES WHERE REMAINS OF THE MAMMOTH
HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED.!

1. FROM RIVER VALLEYS AND ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS.

ENGLAND.

Cornwali and Devonshire.—None.

Somersetshive-—Hinton, Larkhall, Hartlip, St. Audries, Weston-
super-Mare, Chedzoy, Freshford.

Gloucestershire—Gloucester, Barnwood, Beckford, Stroud, Tewkes-
bury.

Dorsetshire.—Bridport, Portland Fissure.

Hampshive.-—Gale Bay, Newton.

Wilishire——Christian Malford, Fisherton, Milford Hill, near
Salisbury.

Berkshive-—Maidenhead, Taplow, Reading, Hurley Bottom.

Oxfordshire-—Yarnton, Bed of the Cherwell, City of Oxford,
Wytham, Culham.

Essex.—Lexden, Orford, Hedingham, Lamarsh, Isle of Dogs,
Walton-on-the-Naze, Ilford (the finest specimen, see p. 187), Wenden,
Harwich, Colchester, Ballingdon, Walthamstow.

Hertfordshire.—Camp’s Hill.

Sussex.—Bracklesham Bay, Brighton, Lewes, Valley of Arun,
Pagham.

Sufjolk—\pswich, Hoxne.

Norjolk.—Bacton, Cromer, Yarmouth.

Cambridge—Barrington, Barnwell, Chesterton, Great Shelford,
Barton, Westwick Hall.

1 From Mr. Leith Adams’s Monograph on British Fossil Elephants. Paleon-
tographical Society, London. 1877.

APPENDIX. 259

Fluntingdonshire.—Huntingdon, St. Neots.

Bedfordshire.—Leighton Buzzard.

Middlesex.—At London, under various streets, etc., viz., St. James’s
Square, Pall Mall, Kensington, Battersea, Hammersmith, and, recently
(1892), in Endsleigh Street. Turnham Green. In the bed of the
Thames at Millbank, Brentford, Kew, Acton, Clapton, etc. Kingsland.

Surrey.—Wallington, Tooting, Peckham, Dorking, Peasemarsh,
near Guildford.

Kent.—Crayford, Erith, Dartford, Aylesford, Hartlip, Otterham,
Isle of Sheppey, Broughton Fissure, Medway, Sittingbourne, Newing-
ton, Green Street Green, Bromley, Whitstable.

Buckinghamshire.—F¥enny Stratford.

Northamptonshire-—Oundle, Kettering, Northampton.

Warwickshire-—Rugby, Wellesborne, Lawford, Bromwich Hill,
Halston, Newnam.

Worcestershive—Stour Valley, Droitwich, Banks of Avon, Flad-
bury, Malvern.

Letcestershire.—Kirby Park.

Staffordshire.—Copen Hall, Trentham.

Cheshire.—N orthwich.

Lincolnshire.—Spalding.

Yorkshire—Whitby, Aldborough, Gristhorpe Bay, Harswell, Leeds,
Bielbecks, Brandsburton, Middleton, Overton, Alnwick, Hornsea.

Herefordshire—Kingsland.

SCOTLAND.
A yrshire.—Kilmaurs.
Between Edinburgh and Falkirk.
Chapel Hall in Lanarkshire, and Bishopbriggs.
At Clifton Hall.

IRELAND.
Cavan.—Belturbet.
Antrim.—Corncastle.
Waterford.—Near Whitechurch (but somewhat doubtful).

2, FROM CAVERNS.

Devonshire.—Kent’s Cavern, Oreston, Beach Cave, Brixham.
Somerset—Hutton Cave, and a cave near Wells, Wookey Hole,
Bleadon Cave, Box Hill, near Bath, Durdham Down, Sandford Hill.

260 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Kent.—In Boughton Cave, near Maidstone.

Nottinghamshire.—In Church Hole.

Derbyshire.—I\n Cresswell Crags, Robin Hood Cave, Church Hole.
Glamorganshire.—\n Long Hole, Spritsail Tor, Paviland.
Caermarthen.—In Coygan Cave.

Waterford—tin Shandon Cave.

EE EN DEX © 1.

LITERATURE.

1. POPULAR WORKS.

The Story of the Earth and Man. By Sir Wm. Dawson.
The Mammoth and the Flood. By Sir Henry Howorth.
Works by Doctor Gideon A. Mantell :—

Medals of Creation.

Wonders of Geology.

Petrifactions and their Teaching.
Phases of Animal Life. By R. Lydekker.
Science for All. 5 vols. (Chapters on Extinct Animals.)
Our Earth and tts Story, vol. ii.
Winners in Life's Race. By Arabella Buckley.
The Autobiography of the Earth. By Rev. H. N. Hutchinson.
Sea Monsters Unmasked. By H. Lee.

2. WORKS OF REFERENCE.

A Manual of Paleontology. 2vols. By Prof. Alleyne Nicholson,
and R. Lydekker.

The Life-History of the Earth. By Prof. Alleyne Nicholson.

Origin of Species. By C. Darwin. Also The Fournal of Researches.

The Old Red Sandstone. By Hugh Miller.

Sketch Book of Popular Geology. By Hugh Miller.

Early Manin Britain. By Prof. Boyd Dawkins.

The English Encyclopedia. (The 2 vols. on Natural History contain
much information on extinct animals.)

The Encyclopedia Britannica. Ninth Edition.

Memotrs of the Ichthyosauri and Plesiosaurz. By Thos. Hawkins.

262 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

Phillips’s Manual of Geology. New Edition, by Prof. H. G. Seeley
and R. Etheridge.

The Book of the Great Sea-Dragons. By Thos. Hawkins.

The Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals. By A.
Heilprin.

Prehistoric Europe. By Prof. James Geikie.

Paleontological Memoirs. By Hugh Falconer, M.D.

Mammals, Living and Extinct. By Prof. Flower and R.
Lydekker.

British Fossil Mammals and Birds. By Sir R. Owen.

A Manual of Paleontology. By Sir R. Owen.

A Catalogue of British Fossil Vertebrata. By A. S. Woodward
and C. D. Sherborn.

3. MONOGRAPHS.

The Dinocerata. By Prof.O.C. Marsh. United States Geological
Survey, vol. x. Washington, 1884.

The Odontornithes, a Monograph on the Extinct Toothed Birds of
North America. By Prof.O.C. Marsh. New Haven, Connecticut, 1880.

The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations. By Prof. E. D. Cope.
Washington, 1883.

The Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Formations of the West. By Prof.
E. D. Cope. Washington, 1875.

Contributions to the Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the Western
Territories. By Joseph Leidy. Washington, 1873.

(The last three are in the reports of the Unzted States Geological
Survey of the Territories.)

The British Merostomata (Paleontographical Society). By Dr.
Henry Woodward, F.R.S.

MONOGRAPHS BY SIR RICHARD OWEN.

A History of British Fossil Reptiles. 4 vols. (Cassell.) (Most of
which has been previously published in the Monographs of the
Paleontographical Society.)

On the Megatherium, or Giant Ground Sloth of America. London,
1860.

On the Mylodon. London, 1842.

On the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand. London, 1878.
Reprinted from Zhe Transactions of the Zoological Soctety.

APPENDIX. 263

4. JOURNALS.

The student should consult the numerous papers by Prof. Marsh
in The American Fournal of Science; and by Prof. Cope in The
American Naturalist. Many of Prof. Marsh’s papers have also
appeared in The Geological Magazine and in Nature. The two latter
journals contain many other valuable papers (and reviews of Mono-
graphs, etc.), too numerous to be separately mentioned. Some are
referred to in the text. Zhe Quarterly Fournal of the Geological
Society contains many papers on Extinct Animals. See also papers
in Natural Science and Knowledge.

AGP PENDS V.

ICHTHYOSAURS.

IT was unfortunate that news of the highly interesting discovery
at Wiirtemberg came too late for our artist to make a new drawing

Fic. 59.—Jchthyosaurus tenuirostris, from Wiirtemberg.

for our first edition, to show the dorsal fin and large tail-fin, etc.,
described by Dr. Fraas.1 This has now been done, as shown in

1 Ueber einen neuen Fund von J/chthyosauvus in Wiirtemberg. JVeues
Jahrbuch f. Mineralogie, 1892, vol. ii. pp. 87-90. The same author has
published a valuable monograph, with beautiful plates, entitled Dze Jchthy-
saurter der Stiddentschen Trias- und Jura-Ablagerungen. 4to. Tiibingen, 1891.

APPENDIX. 265

Plate II. By the courtesy of the proprietors of Matural Science, we
are enabled to reproduce two drawings (Fig. 59) from the September
number, illustrating a paper by Mr. Lydekker, in which he gives
a résumé of the latest intelligence with regard to Ichthyosaurian
reptiles.

In the present year (1892) there has been discovered in the Lias of
Wiurtemberg the skeleton of an Ichthyosaur, in which the outline of
the fleshy parts is completely preserved (see lower figure). The
reader will see from the figure that the tail-fin is very large, and the
backbone appears to run into the lower lobe. Such a tail-fin as this
impression indicates must have resembled that of the shark’s, only
it is wider; but the shark’s backbone runs into the wzpfer lobe.
Sir Richard Owen long ago foretold the existence of this appendage,
and the discovery, coming now (when his life is despaired of), adds
one more tribute to his genius. Behind the triangular fin on the
back comes a row of horny excrescences reminding us of those of
the crested newt.

As Dr. Fraas remarks, this discovery shows how closely analogous
Ichthyosaurs were in form to fishes, and further justifies the title of
‘““fish-lizards.” He considers that they did of visit the shore. The
reader will find much valuable matter in Mr. Lydekker’s paper, above
referred to. The following extract refers to the question of their
reproduction: ‘“‘It has long been known that certain large skeletons
of Ichthyosaurs from the Upper Lias of Holzmaden, in Witrtemberg,
and elsewhere, are found with the skeletons of one or more much
smaller individuals enclosed partly or entirely within the cavity of the
ribs [a specimen is figured]. Of such skeletons there are four in the
museum at Stuttgart, two in that of Tiibingen, one at Munich, and
others in Gent and Paris. Of these, two in Stuttgart, as well as the
two in Tiibingen, contain but a single young skeleton, while one of
those at Stuttgart has four, the Munich specimen five, and the remain-
ing Stuttgart example upwards of seven young. Some of these young
and, presumably, foetal Ichthyosaurs have the head turned towards the
tail of the parent, while in others it is directed the other way. That
these young have not been swallowed by the larger individuals within
whose ribs they are found is pretty evident from several considerations.
In the first place, their skeletons are always perfect. Then they
never exceed one particular size, and always belong to the same
species as the parent. Moreover, it would appear to be a physical
impossibility for one Ichthyosaur of the size of the Stuttgart specimen
to have had seven smaller ones of such dimensions in its stomach at

266 EXTINCT MONSTERS.

one andthe same time. We may accordingly take it for granted that
these imprisoned skeletons were those of foetuses. It is, however,
very remarkable, that, so far as we are aware, all the skeletons with
foetuses belong to one single species; thus suggesting that this
particular species was alone viviparous.”

It is to be hoped that further discoveries will be made, such as may
finally settle this question. One would have expected that in some
cases the young ones, if foctal, would be imperfectly developed.

IN DE X.

a a

A

AEpyornis. Vid. Moa-bird.

Agassiz, 27

“* Age of Reptiles,” 63, 107; ‘‘ Age
of Mammals,” 147

Air, action of, 10

Allosaurus, 83

Ancients, ideas of the, 35, 61, 155,
195, 199

Apatosaurus, 70

Aqueous rocks, 14

Arbroath paving-stone, 26

Armadillo. Vid. Glyptodon,

Articulata, 25

Atlantosaurus, 70

B

_ Backbone of fishes, 49

‘** Bad Lands” of Wyoming, 157

Baker, Sir Samuel, on Crocodiles,
48 ; on Elephants, 215

Basalt, 14

Berossus, the Chaldzean, 34

Birds, fossilisation of, 19; ancestry
of, 63, 109. Vid. Hesperornis,
Moa.

Blackie, Prof. J. S., on Ichthyosau-
Tus, 37

“* Breaks,” 21, 147

Brontops, 160

Brontosaurus, 66; vertebree of, 68;
habits of, 69

Buckland, Dean, 37, 46, 53, 73) 75-
77, 124, 126, 180

Button, 5, 223

C

Cautley, Captain, 162
Cave-earth, 10

Ceratosaurus, 84

Cetiosaurus, 73, 74

Challenger, H.M.S., 20

Chinese legends of Mammoth, 199

Clidastes, 144, 145

Climate, of Lias period, 51; of
Eocene period, 159; of Tertiary
era, 163

Collini, 123

Compsognathus, 86

Conybeare, Rev., on Plesiosaurus,
52, 55; on Sea-serpents, 135

Cope, Prof. KE. D., on Sea-serpents,
139, 141, 143 ; on Eocene wingless
bird, 237

Correlation, law of, 6, 43, 54, 88,
161

Crustaceans, 24

Cuvier, 2, 5; 7% 031 73» 703 omyich=
thyosaurus, 36; on Plesiosaurus,
53; on Iguanodon teeth, 90, 91;
on Pterodactyls, 121, 122, 126;
on Mosasaurus, 135, 136; on
Tertiary animals, 148; on Mega-
therium, 179; on Mammoth, 193,
212; on Mastodon, 217

D

Darwin, Charles, 20; on
Sloths, 181

Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 10; on Mam-
moth, 213

De la Beche, Sir Henry, 37, 52

Denudation, 21

Dimorphodon, 124

Dinocerata, 149 ; skull and limbs of,
150; where found, 155

Dinornis. Vid. Moa-bird. ©

Dinosaurs, chaps. v., Vi-, vil. ; anatomy
of, 64; geographical range of, 75 5

extinct

268

Dinosaurs—continued.
classification of, 65; relations of,
65. Vid. also Allosaurus, Atlan-
tosaurus, Brontosaurus, Cerato-
saurus, Cetiosaurus, Compsogna-
thus, Diplodocus, Hadrosaurus,
Hoplosaurus, Hyleosaurus, Igua-
nodon, Megalosaurus, Morosaurus,
Ornithopsis, Pelorosaurus, Polacan-
thus, Scelidosaurus, Triceratops.

Diplodocus, 72

Dollo, M., 99

Draco volans, 122

Dragons, in mythology, 61; Flying
Dragons, 121 ; legends of, 225

E

Earth-drama, the, 4

Elephas ganesa, 220 ; E. primigenius.
Vid. Mammoth.

Eobasileus (Cope), 154

Eocene period, 149, 153, 158

Eurypterus, 29

Evolution, of Ichthyosaurs, 50; of
Plesiosaurs, 59; of Dinosaurs, 64,
108 ; of Dinocerata, 153 ; of Sloths,
186

Explorations, in Rocky Mountains,
by Marsh, 119, 120; in Kansas,
by Cope, 140, 145; in Wyoming,
by Leidy, 157; in Uinta Basin, by
Marsh, 159; in Sivalik Hills, by
Falconer, 165; in Siberia, 201, 204

F

Falconer, Hugh, 162

Floods, destruction of animals by, 17

Flying Dragons (Pterodactyls), early
discovery of, 123; Pterodactylus
macronyx, 124; P. crassrostris,
125; P. spectabilis, 126; differ-
ences between (Pterodactyls) and
Birds, 127; Rhamphorhynchus,
128 ; Pterodactyls from the Green-
sand, 129 ; American Pterodactyls,
129 ; bones of ditto, 130; habits
of, 131

Footprints, of birds and reptiles, 13,
79; of Brontosaurus, 66 ; Iguano-
don, 102 ; supposed human foot-
prints, 185

Forbes, Mr. H. O., on Moa-birds,
237

Fossils, how preserved, 9-23 ; changes
in, 22

INDEX.

G

Geikie, Sir Archibald, on scenery of
a western plateau, 156

‘* Generalised types,” 150

Geography of Wealden period, 96;
of Cretaceous period, 141, 147; of
Eocene period, 149, 159, 160; of
Miocene period, 161 ; of Pliocene
period, 163

Giants, stories of, founded on dis-
coveries of bones, 40, 155, 195-
198, 220, 225

Glyptodon, 189

H

Hadrosaurus, 97

Harrison, Mr. J., discovers Scelido-
saurus, 105

Hawkins, Mr. T., his collection of
fossil reptiles, 41 ; his books, 40

Hoffman, 134

Home, Sir Everard, 38

Hoplosaurus, 74

Humboldt, 18

Huxley, on Dinosaurus, 63, 64, 77;
85, 87; on origin of birds, 64

Hyleosaurus, 103

I

Ice Age, or Glacial Period, 163, 197,229

Ichthyornis, 109

Ichthyosaurus, 333; Scheiichzer on,
38 ; droppings of, 44; I. tenuiros- -
tris, 44, 264; Owen on habits of, 45 ;
eyes of, 46; jaws of, 48; vertebrae
of, 49 ; ancestry of, 50; part played
by, 50; tail-fin, 49; range of, 51;
Sauranodon, 51; toothless forms
of, 51. Vid. Cuvier.

Iguana, teeth of, 92

Iguanodon, discovery of teeth, 90;
Dr. Wollaston, 91 ; origin of name,
92; jaws of, 93, 94; food of, 96,
101; discovery of Belgian speci-
mens, 98 ; figure of skeleton, 100;
impressions of feet, 102 ; thumb of,
101 ; habits of, 103; restoration by
W. Hawkins, 104

Ilia, 113

Imperfection of the record, 20

Impressions, of leaves, 12; of cuttle-
fishes, 133 of jelly-fishes, 13; of
fish-lizards, 47 and Appendix VY.

Trish Elk, 240

INDEX.

K
King Crabs, habits of, 31
Konig, 38

L

Laramie beds, 116

Lariosaurus, 59

Legends. Vid. Giants.

Leidy, Professor, 143

Leiodon, 142

Lias rocks, 35, 38, 40, 43, 47

Lyell, Sir Charles, on floods, 17 ; on
ideas of the ancients, 34; on
sudden destruction of fish-lizards,
51; on tracks in Connecticut
Sandstone, 81; on Mammoth, 213

M

Mammals, evolution of, 152

Mammoth, distinct from living ele-
phants, 193; finding of, by Adams,
201; by Benkendorf, 205; how
preserved, 209; food of, 210;
extinction of, 213; primitive draw-
ing of, 214 ; legends of, 195-200

Mantell, Dr. G. A., 63 ; on ‘‘ Medals
of Creation,” 85; discovery of
Iguanodon, 93, 98 ; on jaws and
teeth of ditto, 96; on Wealden
strata, 96; discovery of Hylzo-
saurus, 103; on analogies of
Iguanodon and Sloths, 96 ; on dis-
covery of Mosasaurus, 135

Mantell, Mr. Walter, on Moa-birds,
230-232

Marsh, Prof. O. C., on classification
of Dinosaurs, 65 ; on Brontosaurus,
66; on Atlantosaurus, 70; his
collection at Yale College, 72; on
Megalosaurus, 78; on tracks of
Dinosaurs, etc.,79; on Ceratosaurus,
84; on ancient vertebrate life in
America, 110; on reptiles and
birds, 109; on Stegosaurus, IIo,
II4; on Triceratops, 115, 119;
his collection of Pterodactyls, 129 ;
on Sea-serpents, 139; on Dino-
cerata, 149, 153; on explorations
in the Far West, 159, 160; on
footprints of Mylodon, 185

Mastodon, 218; bones and teeth first
described, 220; discovery of, by
M. de Longueil, 221 ; exhibited as

269

*‘the Missouri Leviathan,” 222 ;
legends of, 225

Medals of Creation. Vid. Mantell.

Megaceros. Vid. Irish Elk.

Megalosaurus, 76; localities of, 76 ;
teeth of, 77 ; habits of, 78 ; skeleton
of, 78 (Fig. 8)

Megatherium, 181 ; habits of, 182

Miller, Hugh, 26

Miocene period, 161, 219

Moa-birds, first discovery of, 227 ;
letter to Prof. Owen, 228; W.
Mantell on, 230; species of, 232 ;
native traditions of, 234; AZpyornis,
235; geographical distribution of
giant birds, 236; a new find of
Moas, 237

Monitors, 136

Morosaurus, 71

Mosasautrus, head, etc., found by Hoff-
man, 134; origin of name, 135 ; head
of, 137; structure of, 142 ; habits of,
139 ; Cuvier’s opinion of, 136 ; Cope
on Sea-serpents, 1393; Marsh’s
collection of ditto, 139

Museum at Brussels, 99

Mylodon, 183, 185

N

Neusticosaurus, 59

New Red Sandstone period, 79;
tracks in New Red Sandstone, 80

Nodules, phosphatic, 13

O

Old Red Sandstone, 26, 27

Omosaurus, IIO

Ornithopoda, a group of Dinosaurs,
87

Ornithopsis, 74

Ornithosauria, 132. Vid. Pterodactyls.

Owens) Sic’ IR) 25 37; 40; 885) on
Ichthyosaurus, 45, 49: on Ple-
siosaurus, 54, 58; on Dinosaurs,
64, 733; on Cetiosaurus, 73; on
Megalosaurus, 77; on Iguano-
don, 953; on Scelidosaurus, 106;
on Pterodactyls, 125, 130; on Sea-
serpents, 138; on Megatherium,
181; on Mammoth, 210-212; on
Mastodon, 219 ; on Dinornis, 227,
232)

270

12

Parish, Sir Woodbine, 177, 178

Pauw, M. de, 99

Peat, human bodies in, 18; Deer in,
244

Pelorosaurus, 74

Petrifactions, 9

Phillips, Prof., on Megalosaurus, 76

Plesiosaurus, origin of name, 52;
length of, 55; skin, 54; limbs, 54,
57; habits, 57, 58; relations, 59,
60. Vid. Buckland, Conybeare,
and Konig.

Pliosaurus, 59, 60

Polacanthus, 106

Pterodactyls, C. Kingsley on, 121 ;
origin of name, 122; sizes of, 122;
first discovery of, 123; structure
of, 123, 124; Dimorphodon, 124;
P. spectabilis, 126 ; Condyle of,
127; Ramphorhynchus, 128 ; speci-
mens at Yale College, U.S., 129;
range in time, 132 ; whether warm-
blooded, 130. Vid. Seeley, Marsh,
Owen.

Pterygotus, 26

Pythonomorphs. Vid. Sea-serpents.

R

Ramphorhynchus. Vid. Pterodactyls.

Record, imperfection of the, 19

Rhinoceros ;_ tichorhine or woolly,
224; legends founded on, 225

Rhytina, or ‘‘ Sea-Cow,” 246

Rocks, how made, 14-16

S

Sacrum, the, 113

Sauranodon. Vid. Ichthyosaurus.

Scelidosaurus, discovery of, 105

Scelidotherium, 183

Sclerotic plates, of Ichthyosaurus, 46

Sea-Cow. Vid. Rhytina.

Sea-scorpions, 25; habits of, 31;
relations of, 24, 29, 32; discovery
of, 26; ‘‘Seraphim,” 27; Wood-
ward on, 31; range in time of, 33

Sea-serpents, chap. ix. Vid. Mosa-
saurus, Leiodon, Clidastes.

Seeley, Prof. H. G., on Dinosaurs,
65, 72, 74; on Pterodactyls, 131

INDEX.

Sivalik Hills, 162-170

Sivatherium, 163-169

Sloths, Vid. Megatherium, Scelido-
therium, Mylodon.

Solenhofen limestone, or lithographic
stone of Bavaria, 13, 85, 86, 125

Specialisation, 119, 151

Stegosaurus, 110; skeleton figured,
117; restoration of, 113; second
brain, 113; discovery of, 110, III ;
bony plates, 115 ; Steller’s *‘ Sea-
Cow,” vid. Rhytina.

St. Fond, M. Faujas, 135

Stonesfield slate, 76

Stratified rocks, table of, Appendix I. ;
how formed, 14-16

Stylonurus, 30

Sydenham, models of extinct animals
at Crystal Palace, 34

a

Theropoda, 75
Tinoceras, 149, I51
Triceratops, I15 ;
skull, 116 ; spines, etc.,
extinction of, 119
Trilobites, 25

teeth of, 118 ;
II9Q 5

U

Uintatherium, 154
Uniformity, 17

Vv

Vegetation of Jurassic period, 70 ;
of Wealden period, 96 ; of Eocene
period in America, 159

Von Meyer, on Dinosaurs, 64

W

Water, action of, on organic matter,
10, I1; on fossils, 12

Waterhouse Hawkins, 34, 103

Wealden strata, 96, 97, 103

Williams, Mr. R., on Great Irish
Deer, 244

Wings, of Pterodactyls, 122,125, 127,
129 ; of Moa-bird, 227

Woodward, Dr. Henry, 31, 33, 149,246

Workinen (in pits and quarries), care-
lessness of, 23, 41, 198

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